


La Nuit Venait

by Jasminalaine



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: ;), Blame him, Confession, F/M, Jaime/Brienne people just go to chapter 21, Jon and Dany didn't happen, Jorah + Dany forever, Jorah said it, Lyanna Mormont is my soul sister, Oh look, Or if it did I'm not talking about it, Sam & Gilly are relationship goals, Slow Burn, Team Mormont, but also flash backs so..., but that said, i multi-ship Sansa like nobody's business, more angsty Jaime/Brienne remind-me-again-why-I-killed-off-Jaime? moments in chapter 29, moving slowly is the hard way but it's the right way, seriously her love life is like a choose your own adventure book, so slow, so there, watch out for frostbite, why is S8 so far away still?, winter is here to stay children, yeah so Chapter 27 went deep into SanSan land, you have my permission to skip to chapter 16
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-26 00:43:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 41
Words: 70,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13224615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jasminalaine/pseuds/Jasminalaine
Summary: Post S7 continuation of the show. Begins on a blood-stained battlefield above Winterfell.  A story about the Last Stand of Men and its frigid, tragic aftermath. The games of men and women are finished.  Winter is here to stay.  Jorah x Dany, with a little Sansa and Winterfell thrown in as well.  Standalone but also a prequel to my prior fic, "Winter's Child."





	1. Daenerys

**Author's Note:**

> ****  
> _Author's Note & General Disclaimer:_  
>  
> 
> This is a work of fanfiction. The characters that I have so blatantly borrowed are the creation of GRRM and any references to show plot points or characterizations belong to D&D, those mean boys who like to tease happy endings before offering us Red Weddings and death by zombie hoard.
> 
> So anyway, here’s another #GameofThrones story for all you lovely people…to help deal with the long drought until S8. If you previously read my fic _Winter’s Child_ , this is the promised prequel, but you certainly don’t need to read that one to jump into this one.
> 
> Dedicated to Smashing Teacups, because she's kinda THE BEST. Go read her Jorah/Dany fics. You'll see :)
> 
> This is show-verse only (with a few book references thrown in for those paying attention). All canon events in D&D’s version can stay except for #Jonerys #boatsex which was cute and all but…#nah
> 
> I think the first part of this story will appeal to a wide audience. But please be advised, my dears, this story is for Jorah/Dany shippers (oh yes, we are legion). Teen rating for now but subject to change. Hoping to post a chapter a week. No promises but that’s my plan. Also (*glances at outline*) this might turn into an epic. Just want to warn you early. Okay, deep breath…
> 
> As always, thanks for reading! Xo

**_Daenerys_ **

It kept falling from slate-colored skies, more and more by the hour. Gale-blown clouds raced down from their cold, arctic origins, as if trying to escape the fierce weather they brought with them. Those dark clouds billowed through, heavy with storms that stressed but did not break, spitting snow into the noisy, cluttered melee below. 

Gray flakes mixed with white, but the gray ones stung with heat when they landed on a bare hand, or uncovered cheek. They left a black stain of ash as they melted. It was all remnants of dragon fire and the long, tall swaths of burning forests in the Wolfswood, north of the ragged battlefields. 

Drogon and Rhaegal had set fire to the countryside that morning, in an effort to slow the army of the dead. But morning had turned into afternoon and now evening approached with rapid insistence. Still they came, still they fought. In the bleak skies above, in the icy mud below.

Daenerys was perched on Drogon’s back, holding fast to his black scales while peering beyond his wing and shoulder, her knees digging into his leather hide as she lifted herself higher, her gaze frantic, desperate and darting towards the shadows of low-hanging clouds, attempting to see through the swirls of snow and ash up here in the frost-bit thermals. 

They’d danced for hours, spewing ice and fire, dodging open jaws and outstretched claws, but that last bank of clouds swallowed Viserion and his rider whole. Just like that, the Night King vanished.

“Can you still see him!” Jon Snow yelled to her from her left side, astride Rhaegal’s back.

“No,” she muttered to herself miserably, before hollering over the screaming winds between them, her voice raw and strained in the cold air. “No, I can’t!”

“He has to be close!” Jon answered, his deep voice raised to battle cries. “He’ll be rounding those clouds to come at us from behind!”

Maybe. Or maybe he’d grown tired of this game of dragons. For it was just a game to him. Daenerys knew he was toying with them. His army below was inexhaustible but a Vale cavalryman or one of Jon’s wildlings could slaughter hundreds before falling. Up here, the numbers were tilted in their favor—two against one. Yet still, they faltered. Still they couldn’t bring down the Night King and his mount.

_Viserion._ The dragon’s name flickered in and out of Daenerys’s head. She didn’t allow herself to linger on the familiar sounds of the syllables or think of the Night King’s dragon as her own child any longer. She couldn’t, not when he breathed iced fire at her, screeching murder under his master’s hand. Not with those blue eyes, dead to the land of the living, intent upon her demise. Aloft and in the midst of battle, she swallowed back a moment of uncertainty.

It was one of many. Since she’d landed in Westeros, it had been all uncertainty, war, death and bitter, bitter cold. 

But she was Daenerys Stormborn, Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons, the warrior-queen, the conqueror of Slaver’s Bay, rightful heir to the Iron Throne of Westeros. A small voice in her head whispered, _Not anymore…_

More thoughts flickered and bubbled to the surface, inappropriately asking for attention when she needed her mind clear and her instincts sharp. But they insisted. Jon Snow’s presence up here in the rafters of the sky, astride Rhaegal, kept the revelation fresh in her mind. Jon Snow’s true parentage had been revealed only weeks before. Jon Snow was Jon Targaryen and everything she and so many others had believed for so long was a lie.

A bitter, bitter lie.

With effort, she suppressed it all. There would be time to untangle the rest later. For now, there was only one truth. Only one battle that needed attending. As the Onion Knight was so fond of saying, the true war was between the living and the dead. And the living were losing ground every hour. 

Daenerys urged Drogon to bank left, into the clouds. He was tired, she knew. She felt a hitch in his stride as he dipped the left wing flat. She placed her small hand on his massive neck, to steady him. To promise that it would all be over soon.

_Oh, gods let it be over soon._

Her own bones ached from hours on Drogon’s back, first burning the Wolfswood, then tangling with the hoard and finally tussling with Viserion and his new master in the freezing air. She had touched down only once in the past two hours, when two dozen frost giants made their move on the moors above Winterfell, where the Knights of the Vale and her Dothraki warriors were cutting up the bone-and-ragged-flesh hoards that kept coming, like a damn flood through that hole in the Wall.

Clearing the giants was necessary, as they needed the horses. Their advantage, if they had one, might be lost if all their soldiers were on foot. The Lannister army had lost nearly half of their riders this morning, down by the river, in a blast of ice fire from the undead dragon that burned fiery and hot, despite its blue flame. The initial attack from the dragon had been bad enough but the heat of the flames softened the winter ground, which had been a deep and unsteady swamp all summer. Ten thousand hooves, ten thousand footsteps—the lowlands turned into a morass that swallowed the horses and had the Lannister army fighting and slogging in fields of mud.

“Dany, watch out!” Jon’s clear voice carried in the frigid air, though when she turned, she could no longer see him or Rhaegal. The fog of these icy clouds was thick and weighed down by the burden of more clouds above them. A flash of something in Drogon’s path caught her eye and she turned back, just in time to see Viserion’s outstretched talons coming down from above.

“Drogon, dive!” she cried, ducking her silver-blonde head just below the razor sharp clutches of Viserion’s grasp. Drogon felt the air current of the dragon passing above him and spun sideways as he dove, catching Daenerys off guard. She could not stifle the scream that escaped her lips as she tumbled from her perch on Drogon’s back, grasping wildly for a handhold, catching herself on the scales beneath his right wing.

Viserion hissed his vicious disappointment while Rhaegal screeched a reply far above. As Daenerys climbed back up Drogon’s back with her clumsy, trembling fingers, she saw specks of green and gold, tangling above in the clouds. The screeching, screaming and hissing continued, as two dragons that had once loved each other more than anything else in the world tried to kill each other in the skies of Westeros. 

As she climbed, Daenerys blinked back tears of frustration. 

As the ground came up to meet them, Drogon leveled off, gliding over the massive battleground below. This close to the ground, the sounds of battle were discernible—the shouts of ten thousand men, the rushing stampede of one hundred thousand undead, mash of flesh and break of bone, ring of steel and crackle of fire. 

With considerable effort, Daenerys climbed the last few scales to her prior perch. Thoroughly exhausted, she laid herself flat against her dragon’s back, her cheek resting against his leather skin, her white-knuckled grasp on his scales lessening only by a degree. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, catching her breath and trying to focus. 

She had been in battle before. She had never been one to sit in her pyramid or in her war tent and let foot soldiers win her wars for her. And through them all, she had been brave and strong and every inch the conqueror that her family name demanded. 

_Fire and blood, fire and blood._ Her father, her brothers and her ancestors whispered these fearsome words in her ears, always.

_But I want to plant trees and see them grow. I just want to live in a house with a red door. Please._ Young Dany’s voice pleaded. The young girl in her head always returned to her at the most inopportune times. She couldn’t be that girl right now. _Don’t you understand? We have to fight. We have to be strong._

But with her eyes closed, Daenerys’s mind didn’t see the battlefields outside Winterfell. The images that faded in and out were all from far away and long ago. A lemon-scent at the window. A white horse in the Great Grass Sea. Blue eyes meeting hers in the Red Waste. 

_You must be their strength, Khaleesi…_

A few moments more and she would have recovered enough to turn Drogon upwards once more, up to chase the Night King until the bitter, bitter end. 

But Drogon, weary and wishing that his mother would whisper instructions to fly far away from the unceasing, doomed battle, was skimming too close to the ground this time. A dead woman with ice-blue eyes, who had once upon a time broke bread with Jon Snow at Hardhome, took an iron-tipped spear and threw it with an aim that was strong and true. 

Drogon had seen Viserion fall and did not intend to meet the same fate. But after hours aloft, he was tired and slow. He twisted in the air but the iron spear pierced his left wing just the same and sent both the dragon and his rider hurtling towards the fields of blood and mud below. 


	2. Jorah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the kudos/comments!! :)

**_Jorah_ **

“The Kingslayer has fallen! The Kingslayer has fallen!” The repeated shouts from gold-armored Lannisters, retreating from the banks of White Knife from the east, might have been greeted with cheers by the Northern armies who made up the center flank, if the words had been spoken only a few months before. The news was now met with stricken glances and dead silence, as the men knew that Jaime Lannister was all that was holding the river. The dead would be coming from two sides now, south through the charred ruins of the Wolfswood and east across the river. 

Jorah Mormont, commanding general of the ground forces, received the news with a grim and taciturn expression that had varied little all day. Night was approaching. The horizon bled stark violet on the edge of storm clouds that pushed forward faster than the army of the dead. Spits of snow and ash mixed together in the air all around them.

The air grew colder and there was something sinister in its chill. The heat of battle failed to shake off the frost and their steel began to stick, slick with blood and water icing up the blades. Beric Dondarrion’s sword might have stayed clean, as it was doused in flame, but Jorah had seen that fiery sword charge a swarm of the undead hours ago and he hadn’t seen it since.

They were within thirty miles of Winterfell now, pushed back first from Last Hearth, then down to the Wolfswood in the west and the Dreadfort in the east, and still further, losing ground every hour towards their last stand. There were just too many. And they didn’t stop, they didn’t rest. For every one of the living soldiers that fell, the Night King gained another to his side.

Still, they stood their ground.

 _Here we stand._ Jorah thought grimly as he watched yet another surge break across the hillside, skeletal soldiers rushing at them with a fevered pace that stunk of madness and mayhem. 

“Come meet my axe, you fucking cunts!” Sandor Clegane growled in anticipation, from Jorah’s left. The Hound was covered head-to-toe in blood and grime. His axe had felled a thousand soldiers this day. And yet, there was little to show for it, except piles of undead corpses on the long road of retreat. 

One wave followed another. Jorah’s men sliced through them all, but it was exhausting work, like slogging through the tangled underbrush of some foreign jungle.

 _At least the jungle would be warm_ , Jorah grumbled in his head as he plunged the iron sword in his left hand into the clattering rib cage of the nearest spear-waving undead, while fending off two others with the sword in his right.

Jorah had never faced an enemy like this. When he was still a young man, he fought for glory, following Thoros of Myr into Pike with such reckless abandon, cutting down the rebellious Greyjoys with vigor. In exile, he fought for gold, suppressing all thoughts of honor for the grasping, grueling work of buying his way home again. But his enemies had always been flesh and blood, with desires and motivations of their own. 

Even fighting for Daenerys all those years—in the Red Waste, in Qarth, in Slaver’s Bay, in the fighting pits of Meereen…all her many enemies were men attempting to preserve a way of life and a power and influence they had come to believe they held by right. They held fast to their old world order and paid for it. In fire and blood. 

Perhaps they even deserved it. Jorah was tempted to believe they did, but he knew himself well enough to know that Daenerys could demand anything of him and he would give it to her—despite knowing the veritable truth of words he spoke to her years ago in the pyramid at Meereen: _It’s tempting to see your enemies as evil, but there’s good and evil on every side of every war ever fought._

 _Until this one,_ he amended in his head. The Night King’s army was something else entirely.

The enemy was fast but their bones were brittle. Their aim was sharp but their hearts were empty. Their eyes were chillingly haunted, their mission to destroy every living being in their path was insatiable. Like a plague, they were created and fashioned for only one purpose, to conquer and destroy. To bring death and more death.

“Gods be damned!” Jorah cried aloud, as one of the smaller ones, a child once upon a time, emerged from the pack and leapt up, crawling, clawing, grasping at his wrist and making his sword play clumsy for too many seconds in a row. He shook the blue-eyed demon off, but not before another landed a fierce blow on his upper torso, where his armor was failing and he felt cold metal bite into flesh. With a roar of anger, he brought the sword around and took the bastard’s head off.

“Watch those little fuckers, Mormont!” Sandor Clegane cautioned, the warning coming too late to do any good. Jorah continued hacking and slashing at the hoard, with the rest of them, ignoring the newest wound as he had the rest, until the dead lay as corpses once again at their feet.

They lost another eighth mile in the surge but maintained their numbers, sad as they may be. Success was now measured in merely holding the line, which _still_ they failed to do. And now with the Kingslayer’s men in full retreat, Jorah could only hope Lyanna’s Bear Island fighters and the Knights of the Vale were holding the western line with more success. 

But it was just a matter of time. The stubbornness of bears, lions, wolves and wildlings would not stop the flood of dead men or the imminent blizzard that rolled in on those violet storm clouds. 

In the brief reprieve, Jorah grimaced as he reached under his split armor. He came away with scarlet blood bathing his fingers. 

“You’ll need to sew that up,” the Hound mentioned darkly, as he climbed the knoll that Jorah stood on. 

“It’s a scratch,” Jorah muttered back, adding, “And there’s no time.”

Far across the moors, a Whitewalker on a monstrous black horse was raising the dead they had only recently felled. And the spits of ice and snow were falling faster and harder, flakes and pellets swirling in a few new blasts of northern breeze. And one blast from above, as large, leathery wings flapped by overhead.

“The dragons!” one of Jon’s wildlings in the small valley below raised a hand, pointing at the battle raging in the sky. Jorah looked up with the rest.

Jorah’s heart went cold, colder than the frosty air that swirled around the corpse-strewn moors. Viserion and Rhaegal were dancing in the sky above, tussling and tangling, as they headed to Winterfell. But Drogon was not with them.

Drogon and his rider were not with them.


	3. Sansa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've added a few Sansa tags just because I'll continue to weave the Winterfell story in as I move forward. The more I write Sansa as a character, the more I enjoy her. Her character arc in the show has been impressive and there's so much to explore! And, let's be honest, the girl deserves a little happiness. Not that she'll get any in this chapter. But, you know, later...after #somuchmoreangst 
> 
> Thanks for your comments/kudos! :)

**_Sansa_ **

Sansa Stark watched the end of the war unfold from the battlements of her home. She had been standing on the wall of the castle for hours, her eyes drawn north, towards the battles raging above Winterfell. The roaring flames from the burning Wolfswood had licked the rafters of the ashen sky and she had seen black silhouettes of dragons diving and wrestling together against the red-and-violet of the bruised and battered horizon beyond.

She had heard the shouts and screams of battle inching closer all day. They would be at the gates of Winterfell before morning and that would be the end. The Last Stand of Men, though how pitiful it would be. The Night King’s army would make quick work of the castle and then they would march on, with nothing between them and the rest of Westeros.

“My lady?” yet another messenger from the battlefield appeared by her side. This one was young, younger than her, too young to grow a full beard, which might have protected his face from the inclement weather. His cheeks were rubbed raw with patches of snow and blood that would come off with skin when they finally thawed. 

His breath escaped in white gasps up here on the castle walls, without the heat of battle, and the messenger wondered briefly how Lady Stark could stand the cold.

“Shouldn’t you be inside, my lady?” he wondered aloud. He was common born and too young to know that the question was impertinent. He should relate his news directly and be gone, leaving her to keep vigil as she chose. But she knew he meant no offense and there was little point keeping up the old rules. They would all be dead before morning.

“What news do you have?” she ignored his question and asked one of her own. He hesitated and dipped his head, wishing the words threatening to fall off his lips would stay there, silent and untrue, if only unspoken. 

“Jaime Lannister is dead,” he managed bluntly. “The western line is broken and men are fleeing south.”

“And the rest?” Sansa prodded, knowing there was more by the crestfallen look on the young soldier’s frost-painted face.

“The knights of the Vale are nearly spent,” he answered glumly. “Same with the Targaryen Queen’s Dothraki riders and the last of her Unsullied. Our numbers decrease every minute and the Night King’s army only grows. And she’s missing, my lady.”

“Who’s missing?”

“Daenerys Stormborn. They’re saying that her dragon was hit with a spear and went down behind the lines of the undead. She hasn’t been seen in the skies since.”

“And my br—my cousin, I mean,” she stumbled on the unfamiliar term, still too new to her ears, still charged with so much strangeness. The lies of twenty years were hard to shake. She couldn’t bring herself to use his new name, instead asking, “Where is Jon Snow?”

“Still fighting off the Night King and his dragon, Lady Stark,” the soldier confirmed with the smallest of smiles, happy at least to give her some good news at last. 

Sansa nodded and dismissed him, silently. He bowed in respect and retreated, down the way he came, to rejoin the battle, to add his death to the rest.

 _As long as Jon is alive, there’s hope_ , came a small, defiant voice in her head. But it was a false voice, a voice that believed in happy endings and good conquering evil. Sansa knew better. 

Still, she watched. Still, she hoped. 

Evening fell. Sansa remained on the battlements, furs dusted in snow, red hair spilling out from the hood of her silver-and-black cloak, all fluttering in freezing weather and small snow squalls that breathed to life as the wind swept down the battlements. She was a vision of cold, frigid beauty and if Petyr Baelish had still been alive, he wouldn’t have been able to hold back his hand to brush his fingers against her cold cheek.

The cold had her wrapped in gossamer sheets of ice. But she felt nothing. Silently, she watched as two dark spots in the northern sky grew ever larger. 

_This is the end._ She thought to herself. 

Reaching the castle first, the Night King and his dragon dropped from the sky, breathing fire across a wide swath of the eastern wall and its many-times burned courtyard. Sansa remained immoveable. She was resigned. Her home had withstood Theon’s stupid treachery and Ramsay’s bloody horrors. But this, at long last, was the Last Stand of Winterfell. 

She faced it steadily. She was old Stark blood, blood of the First Men, and the Lady of Winter. Like her father before her, she knew how to die well.

But Jon, up in the frost thermals, would have told her that it wasn’t over yet. Not nearly. Not while there was life left in his veins. He forced Rhaegal on and caught up with the Night King and Viserion on their ascent from that brazen assault on Winterfell’s walls. 

The dragons screeched at each other high above the snow-covered fields. They tangled again, locked in each other’s talons once, twice, before releasing and trying again. Sansa had heard people speak of the dance of dragons. She’d read the phrase in a book when she was still a little girl but hadn’t considered what the real thing looked like.

It _was_ a dance. A terrible, beautiful dance as two mythical creatures attempted to tear each other to pieces.

They fought on, neither retreating. Jon and the Night King had lost control of their mounts, as Rhaegal and Viserion twisted and spun in the air, gouging, biting and breathing fire. This was a battle between brothers and once begun, no one, not even the damn Night King could stop it. Up, up, up they flew, before turning sharply to lock talons for a third, deadly time.

Sansa watched as the two dragons met, this time with such vehemence and force that Jon and the Night King were thrown from their mounts, left in freefall far above the fields of Winterfell, falling through the cold air to the hard ground below.

Her lips parted but she could manage no sound.

Jon’s sword was in his hand. When Jeor Mormont gave his young steward that sword, he couldn’t have known its fate. Even the Old Bear couldn’t have imagined this scene, as Jon Snow and the Night King fell, wrestling mid-air, tumbling towards ice and snow. 

Sansa saw the flicker of evening’s last, resilient rays reflect off the sword’s Valyrian steel blade. Those few strands of faint sunlight peeking past the storm clouds would be gone in moments but that’s all it took.

Jon Snow did not fail. 

With a strong death blow, she watched Jon plunge Longclaw into the monster’s heart and twist it in deep. She heard the Night King’s scream as it echoed across the fields of Winterfell and beyond, leveling great stretches of his inexhaustible armies in a blast of cold, bitter air brought on by a death howl that could be heard the world over.

And then Jon Snow and the Night King were gone, out of sight, sending up a spray of snow and ice as they hit the ground beyond the dip of the black moor. There was ice on Sansa’s cold, pale cheeks, drawn in the path of tiny, persistent streams from her blue-gray eyes. The sting of that ice was the only thing she’d felt in days and she didn’t brush it away. 

As night fell and the skies above began to churn, Sansa Stark finally left the battlements and went down into the castle below.


	4. Daenerys

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mid(ish)-week post because 1) as Queen of the Slow Burn, I think I owe you guys some actual Jorah/Dany moments (there will be SO MUCH MORE, I promise) and 2) I'm just feeling ambitious. Special extra thanks to Smashing Teacups for helping me through a canon-compliance issue...she keeps me honest, folks <3
> 
> I've also added a Sam/Gilly tag since I'm in the middle of drafting a Gilly chapter right now and they're adorable, just in general. Stay tuned.
> 
> As always, thanks for reading! :)

**_Daenerys_ **

Daenerys swallowed hard as she surveyed the grim scene around her.

She was in a sea of corpses, in a valley of mud and ice. Some of the corpses were twice dead, some on the shadowed side of living. The charred ruins of the Wolfswood smoldered half a mile behind her, casting a dull orange glow over the countryside.

She was north of the battlefield, behind the back line of the Night King’s army, limping through the gruesome remains of the past morning’s skirmishes. Drogon nursed his wound beside her but would not allow her to touch his injured wing, as the cut had gone deep this time and pierced the hide above his shoulder. When she attempted to remove the spear, he bared his teeth at her viciously, much like he had that day in Essos, while she sat up on the rocky crags of the hill country and watched all three of her children play and fight over a young goat.

_They are dragons, Khaleesi. They can never be tamed._

She grimaced in pain as she tried to put weight on her left ankle. It was no good. After taking the spear, Drogon’s landing had been rough. She couldn’t hold on and slipped off his scales as he touched down, rolling off the dragon’s back clumsily and hitting the ground with too much speed. Her injuries might have been worse if she hadn’t fallen into a pile of corpses that broke her fall with their pools of blood and flesh. 

Her hands were scratched up and bleeding. There was a gash on her forehead, which bled profusely and which she tried to stopper using a handful of dirty snow. She couldn’t use the left ankle. She was drenched in mud and blood and…freezing.

She pulled the snow away from her forehead immediately and felt her breath catch, on the new chill in the air as night fell. She’d been cold all day but suddenly and instinctively she knew this was different. Her adrenaline, so high during the battles of the day, had disappeared. With it, went the embers keeping her warm from the inside. Her hands started to shake and she buried them deep in the folds of her blood-stained, fur-lined coat.

“Drogon, we can’t stay here,” she whispered to the black dragon, through trembling lips. Perhaps he didn’t feel it—the change in the air, the impending storm. He was a creature of fire, after all. Well, so was she…and yet, this was a cold she could not shake.

_Oh, damn this country._ Tears of frustration and exhaustion pricked at her eyes. She closed them briefly, trying to conjure up the heat of Essos but it was a foolish thing to do, as memories piled on memories and her path to this very spot crystallized too sharply, with everything she had hoped and dreamed for so long disintegrating into dust and ash.

The Iron Throne was hers by right. How many times had she said those words aloud? 

Said with defiance to the sad remnants of Khal Drogo’s khalasar on the night her dragons were born, promising them vengeance and justice against those who would see them trampled on the steppes, as carrion for vultures. Said with rage to the Spice King in Qarth on the steps of his beautiful mansion, after she’d humbled herself in his undeserving presence. Said with pleasure to the Masters of Astapor, Yunkai and Mereen before she slaughtered them all. And said with such confidence to Jon Snow and Ser Davos Seaworth when they came to treat with her at Dragonstone. 

And all that long time, it wasn’t true. The Iron Throne was no more hers by right than it had been Robert Baratheon’s.

Her brother had a son. Rhaegar Targaryen, heir to the Seven Kingdoms, had died with a natural born son still living. A secret affair, a legitimate marriage, a trueborn son—with all his father’s titles and claims to her father’s throne. She was not the last dragon, after all. And no more was she queen of anything…unless she wanted to take what wasn’t hers and become a usurper herself.

_Queen Daenerys Stormborm, the hypocrite._ She couldn’t do it, she wouldn’t do it. Not to Jon, who her dragons had felt kin to from the first, who had supported her and bent the knee to her, despite his pride, his deep roots in this country and the stark fact that it was he and no one else who recognized the gravity of the Northern threat and did something about it. 

Even before they knew he had a better claim, it was clear that he would be a better monarch. He wouldn’t crush his enemies, he would unite them. He had already, many times over. This stand against the Night King’s army was evidence of that. Too bad he would never get the chance to make a better world. 

They were all marked for dead, long before she was even born. She remembered again her visions in the House of the Undying. She had misread all the signs. Perhaps if she hadn’t been so blindly fixated on that damn iron chair, she could have seen it sooner and done something about it. But now…if there was a lesson in ice and fire, it was buried beneath snow and ash. 

A crack of bones echoed in her ears and she turned sharply at the sudden sound. An undead soldier creaked and groaned as he lifted himself up from the carnage, only a few yards away. His ice blue eyes were fixed on her. She stared back uneasily. 

More cracks and groans followed, as three more rose up from their defeat, missing limbs and bones, with skulls smashed in and bodies broken, but living still. Slowly, but with menace, they limped her way.

“Why can’t you just stay dead?” she whispered more to herself than to the undead, quickly surveying the ground at her feet for a weapon. 

She found the hilt of a broken knife, arrow heads sunk in the ice and shards of dragonglass. The fields were littered with Jon’s dragonglass. She grabbed the longest piece she could find and tried not to cry out in pain as she straightened up, forgetting and putting too much weight on that ruined ankle.

She couldn’t run. And Drogon wouldn’t fly her away from danger this time. Selfish and sick of war, he continued nursing his wounds and did not spare a glance in his mother’s direction. Daenerys didn’t blame him. His fire was spent. So was hers. She had promised her children victory and glory and she’d delivered nothing but pain and misery and death.

She clutched the shard of dragonglass tightly. The chill of frosted obsidian burned her hand but she held on. The undead soldiers plucked spears and swords out of the corpses that surrounded them and circled her slowly. 

One of the more fearless ones tried poking the dragon with the sharp, curved edge of a discarded arakh. It glanced off Drogon’s scales on the first try. On the second, Drogon turned his attention away from the black spear lodged in his wing long enough to snap his powerful jaws just once. The brittle bones of the undead soldier splintered into fragments. Unwilling to be subjected to the pricks and pokes of bone-clattering gnats, the dragon shook off the snow that had gathered on his hide and flew off clumsily, the spear still lodged in his left wing, to find someplace quieter and safer to nurse his wounds and heal. He flew low to the ground but soon disappeared into the dark swells of evening.

Daenerys had no time to call him back. She could only watch, grief-stricken, as he abandoned her there, alone, to face her would-be murderers with only that shard of dragonglass.

The first one struck at her with a short sword, raised quickly and then brought down towards her skull. With a cry she blocked the sword with the shard of dragonglass and ducked at the same time. Her tenuous balance was shattered so easily by that first blow and she fell. She rolled away as the other two swung their own weapons down, missing her by inches only. 

Her vision was blurred by tears of frustration and the dire knowledge that she would feel cold steel slice into her flesh on the next blow. She lost hold of the dragonglass and dug her hands into the blood-smeared snow that she’d fallen into, trying to find it again. She fumbled wildly. She found nothing but frost and cold bones in the mud of a hundred corpses. The fickle darkness of twilight blinded her, sounds muffled and her sense of touch numbed with every second. She crawled, expecting the death blow at any moment. More tears. She felt buried alive.

_Are all graves so cold?_

But suddenly, she was on her feet again, dragged up by strong, steady arms that lifted her out of the grave she’d fallen into. She was pulled back against a chest clad in leather and armor, with a man’s arm looped around her waist and a gruff voice in her ear that she knew better than any other in the world.

“Stay close to me,” Ser Jorah commanded, releasing her only after she had gained her footing once more and then only to cut down those undead soldiers that attempted to charge them again. The knight made quick work of two of them and they fell back into the pit of death they’d come from.

The third, iron-tipped spear in hand, twirled his weapon with menace. His movements were fast and light-footed, reminiscent of a Braavosi water dancer. Except this water dancer was missing half his face. Jorah parried the dead man’s first blow away and prepared for a second. 

Daenerys was rooted to the icy earth. She couldn’t move if she wanted to. Her hands shook violently and there was a cold tremor running through her entire body. She stood in a tainted place. 

But then, a howl. Unearthly and filled with death, the howl echoed across the frosted fields, coming from the very edge of night in the southeast. The orange-colored embers of the smoldering Wolfswood lit up the fields in an eerie glow. It reflected off the sky above, black and churning, ready to split open. In the far distance, there were two lonesome specks in the sky, tumbling, falling from great heights as dead weights. She couldn’t see them clearly but somehow she knew they glinted green and gold. 

She swallowed back new tears as the specks fell out of sight. 

A great wind followed on the heels of the wailing howl. Touched by the unnatural breeze, the last dead soldier crumpled to a heap of bones before them. Jorah sheathed his sword and went to fetch his horse.

“Where’s Drogon?” Jorah asked her, once he had returned to her side, with the white mare in tow. 

A sudden vision of the silver mare that Khal Drogo had given to her as a wedding gift flashed across her mind. She almost reached out to stroke the animal’s face to make sure it was real and not a ghost…oh, but perhaps the horse wasn’t white at all, just covered in snow. The snow was falling much heavier now. White flakes fluttered down from great heights.

The horse breathed heavily. Jorah must have pushed her hard across the moors.

Daenerys shook her head, her fuzzy mind finally hearing the question he asked. 

“He’s not here. He flew off,” she answered miserably, utter defeat in her sad, small voice as she added, “I don’t know where he’s gone.”

Seeing a vacant look in her eyes, not violet now, but black in the odd play of dying fires and encroaching night, he said gently, “He’ll find some place to wait out the storm. You’ll see him again, Daenerys. But right now we have to go. We can’t stay here.”

He stroked the horse’s neck, brushing away the snow. He adjusted her bridle and tightened the saddle. The animal was weary but anxious, hooves taking small side-steps as Jorah worked, the overwhelming smell of blood and frost mixing in the mare’s flaring nostrils.

“Did you see Jon and Rhaegal?” Daenerys asked him, hearing the tremble in her words as the cold wrapped its fingers around her throat.

“Aye,” he answered, with a dark expression. He did not meet her gaze. “Last I saw, he was chasing the Night King to Winterfell.”

“…he could have survived.” It took a moment for her lips to form the empty words.

They’d both heard that howl. They’d both seen those specks in the sky fall. He didn’t answer her, only laid his scarred and scratched hand against the horse’s shoulder, speaking in low, wordless tones, soothing the mare into a less fitful state.

“Jorah,” she pleaded, close to tears again, needing to know if… 

“Nothing’s certain.” He said finally, perhaps even honestly. If she could see his eyes, she would know for sure. But his gaze was still firmly on the horse. The mare settled under the knight’s calming hand, despite the continued swirl of snow and smell of death. He turned to her, those eyes finding hers once more, raspily imploring, “We have to go.” 

Daenerys nodded blankly. Jorah’s eyes betrayed him. They always did. And her own soul knew the truth, despite her vain attempts to pretend otherwise. Jon Snow, the only other Targaryen in the world, was dead. She was the last dragon once again. Once, that thought would have made her defiant. Now it only filled her with dread. She felt ready to topple over. If not for Jorah’s steadying hand taking her arm, she might have.

With a practiced motion, he lifted her onto the mare and then pulled himself up behind her. His arms encircled her shivering, shaking form as he picked up the reins and urged the horse on, northwest—which was just as good a direction as any of them, she supposed. It was all death, north, south, east and west. 

Frost crept across the cockles of her heart. She felt it bite at the mouth of her veins, begging to be let in. But the warmth of Jorah’s familiar flesh-and-blood presence after so much ice-and-cold, in the air, in the snow drifts, in the eyes of a hundred thousand dead—men, women and children, friends and foes alike…

She clung to him, feeling safe for the first time all day.


	5. Jorah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jorah should _really_ consider getting that cut looked at. Just sayin'...
> 
> Thanks for the comments/kudos!! AO3 readers are seriously the best :)

**_Jorah_ **

Even in summer, when the leaves on the trees were green and vibrant and the roads in the north were clear and passable, not slick with ice, stinking of ash and death and littered with heaps of snow-covered corpses, it would have taken them too much time to reach Winterfell. Drogon had left Daenerys stranded too far north and going south would mean going back through the mass of bones and corpses that Jorah had forced the battle-weary horse through earlier, all buried now in icy drifts as snow continued to accumulate in open fields.

They would never make it. Not with the horse now stumbling on every obstacle in its path. Not with his sword arm weakened almost past use, as hot blood continued to seep out of that scratch that he’d told the Hound was nothing. Not with Daenerys unable to walk and both of them bloodied and tired and ready to fall from exhaustion.

He might have risked it anyway, if those storm clouds that had hovered above the Night King’s army all day would dissipate into vapor. But with the creature’s death, there was a second screaming howl—the howl of snow and ice and blizzard barreling in from somewhere far above the Frost Fangs and the Fist of the First Men. After all their threats, the clouds finally broke open and only thickened as they collided with each other. The snow flurries began falling faster and harder than before, three inches in just over an hour. The storm had an unnatural look that tasted like last vengeance, whether from the whims of dead men or the earth itself wanting to cover its face with a crisp, white sheet…

And though the dead hadn’t been able to kill them, the weather surely would. It was cold. So bitterly, bitterly cold. It burned in their lungs with each labored breath. Jorah’s hands held the mare’s leather reins numbly. In the shared saddle, Daenerys huddled as close to him as she could, burying her face against his chest, as the frigid breeze whipped over the moors, bringing with it the razored tongue and sharp fangs of the northernmost winds, conjured up in polar regions for the purpose of preserving glaciers for generations. 

Jorah turned the horse west through the smoldering ruins of the Wolfswood. Much of the fire in the eastern portion of the forest had burned itself out, so quick to flame alive in the oxygen-rich air. The ancient woods, all the elm, oak, ironwoods and firs that had been standing for hundreds of years, fell to ash and blackened bones. The trees that still stood were shorn of their branches and smoking like chimneys. Residual heat lingered in the cinders but the heavier snows would snuff it out quickly. 

There was still fire burning deep in the western forest. Jorah saw its orange glow in the distance like a beacon and headed towards it. He watched the telling movement of clouds in the night sky, warily keeping on the edge of the storm as it moved south.

He knew the path west blindfolded. He shouldn’t be so surprised. This was his country. The North was in his blood, with roots inherited from his father and his father’s father, all the way back to the First Men. And this was the road home to Bear Island. But all those years in exile, he always wondered if his memories of home would abandon him at last, their edges dulling, the deep colors of green forest, brown bears and black water fading away into nothingness, half a world away. 

He remembered sitting beneath a Dothraki tent in Essos, in burning, scathing desert heat, eyes closed, trying to recall the smell of snow on cedars or the sound of cold water crashing against the sea stones and spilling over the waterfall outside the old Mormont Hall. 

Had he managed it? He couldn’t remember now. So much of his life felt like a dream. He’d been awake for too many hours in a row and the blood loss wasn’t helping. His thoughts were muddled. Only the cold was real. Only the night. Only the knowledge that they were in open country with a storm rushing in that would freeze them solid if they didn’t outrun it.

Daenerys mumbled something against his chest, so quietly that her words were lost to his ears. She clung to him tightly, drawing as much heat from him as she could. He had thrown his cloak around her shoulders but she was still cold to the touch. Fierce and fearsome as they could be, dragons weren’t made for this weather.

_Two dragons tangling in the air, men and monsters falling to their deaths._

He bent his head closer to hers, down into the cocoon she’d made for herself, feeling the cold ivory of her forehead brush against his unshaven cheek as he asked, “What did you say?”

“I want to go home,” she whispered against his chest, still so softly, that he might have missed the words again. But those words echoed his own. They echoed the thoughts of every person within two hundred miles.

_Home._

Winter made children of them all. The games of men were over at last. Kingdoms and thrones and even fighting off an undead insurgency—none of it mattered. It was all over. The sky lords, in all their unholy terror and capricious whims, would rule the world until the end of winter. The only game left for men and women to play was the game of survival. And no matter who you were or where you came from, the game of survival was best fought at home. 

“We will go home,” he answered, repeating the old promise to breathe new life into its fragile, fair-weather bones. He had said it so long ago that she might not remember. But he remembered. He could still recall the exact shade of her violet eyes, haunted and plaintive, as she asked, 

_What do you pray for Ser Jorah?_

_That I will not fail her._ He prayed it again and again, a million prayers sent up to whoever might listen, since that very day in the Western Market when a wine merchant tried to serve her his poisoned vintage. _That I will finally take you home, my princess._

_Oh, but where is home, Ser? To exiles and orphans, what place can we call home?_

He pushed aside his darker thoughts with ease, as the cold continued to remind him of the task at hand. He urged the horse forward and said again, in a steely tone that left no room for doubt, “We will go home, Daenerys. I promise you.”


	6. Tyrion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tyrion chapter first but I'll probably do another mid-week posting (new Daenerys chapter) this week so look for that. It's worth your time, I promise ;)
> 
> Thanks for all the kudos/comments! Xo

**_Tyrion_ **

The Winterfell courtyard was nearly quiet when Tyrion Lannister walked through it a few minutes before midnight, ice clinging to his beard and curses raised on his lips, against the _fucking_ cold, the _goddamn_ wind and the inevitable futility of a bleak, vain search for a dead man buried in snow. 

Tyrion trudged through a foot of snow to the main entrance of the Keep. Bronn followed him in through the gate, brushing snow off his long coat, taking off his leather gloves and blowing air into his bare hands, red and raw, rubbing them briskly to conjure up some semblance of warmth. The sellsword’s eyes were red-rimmed from lack of sleep and hours of trying to maintain his bearings in the icy blasts of snow pellets swirling in the dark. Together, they stood on the stone steps beneath the awning for a long moment, finally out of the weather for the first time in hours. Bronn took a deep breath and looked down at Tyrion.

“I’m going to bed…,” Bronn tried to think of something clever to say but found he was exhausted to a point beyond cleverness and finished with a simple, understated, “Forever.” 

“That’s a good plan,” Tyrion answered, nodding wearily. Bronn leaned against the thick planks of the Keep doors and they both stumbled inside. Tyrion slipped the heavier furs from his shoulders onto the stone floor. There was a wheelbarrow of straw just inside the entryway. He was tempted to plop down in it and sleep for a few days himself. Walking up the staircase to the proper bed chambers seemed a little too far after hours upon hours of trudging through endless, white snow drifts.

Bronn decided to try the stairs. The promise of a soft mattress was too tempting. He turned once before disappearing from view and added, “If those fuckin’ Whitewalkers come back, don’t wake me. They can have the whole fuckin’ country, from Casterly fuckin’ Rock to King’s Landing, from Winterfell to fuckin’ Dorne. Just don’t wake me to tell me about it.”

He grumbled some more but Tyrion didn’t hear the rest. The winter winds howled against the castle’s thick walls with insistence. The storm wanted in, to gnash its frosty teeth against every stone and timber in the place, to blow out the fires, to freeze the hot springs below the castle and make frosted ice figurines of them all.

Tyrion shivered. It would be warmer upstairs, under down quilts and wool blankets, but his bones ached and his body was ready to mutiny. He looked at the wheelbarrow of straw once again. He’d slept in far worse places. 

“Lord Tyrion!” a steward appeared from the inner chambers. “Lady Sansa has asked for you.” 

The steward looked as if he had just woken up, with his muddy-brown hair askew and his eyes glassy. He’d been charged with fetching Tyrion as soon as the dwarf returned to the castle, and he’d been waiting on a stool since sundown. Honestly, he gave Lord Tyrion and Ser Bronn up for dead hours ago—so many of the others were dead so why not them too?—and promptly fell asleep at his sentry. 

Tyrion and Bronn’s communal cursing had roused him.

“Has she?” Tyrion stated flatly. His lingering glance on the wheelbarrow of straw turned wistful.

“Yes, my lord,” the steward answered. “She’s retired for the night but asked that you come to her chambers immediately upon your return.”

“Of course,” Tyrion replied tersely and with effort, dragged himself up the stairs. 

She would want to know if they found Jon Snow’s body. They hadn’t. She would want to know who else could now be counted among the dead. Too many. She would want to know if the storm would kill the rest of them. Probably. It was dismal talk for a dismal night and he wasn’t quite up to it.

He just wanted to sleep. Forever and a day, and dream of sweeter times, red wine, beautiful women and summer sunsets at the edge of the warm Summer Sea. 

But that was all nonsense. He wouldn’t sleep tonight. He already knew that. The horrors of the past few days were too fresh in his mind, and unlike Bronn or Sandor Clegane—who he found, still covered in battlefield grime, snoring in a wooden chair in the hallway upstairs…gods, the man was as resilient as a cockroach—he couldn’t chase those thoughts away so quickly.

But perhaps Sansa had found a way to sleep tonight. He knocked at her door tentatively, tapping the planks with a feather-light touch, and saying softly, “Lady Sansa, are you awake?”

“Yes,” came the swift reply.

_Of course you are, my lady._

Tyrion opened the door and found Sansa still dressed, with a second fur thrown around her shoulders, sitting at her fire, gaze on the crackling flames, white knuckles gripping the sides of her chair tightly. Her bed wasn’t turned down, it hadn’t been slept in for days.

“Did you find his body?” she asked immediately, as he knew she would. He sank into the chair across from her wearily. The soft cushions and warmth of firelight beckoned him to close his eyes. He resisted the temptation and shook his head.

“The snow was too deep. We had to turn back,” he sighed, pleased at least that they were beyond subterfuge and court manners that would require him to mask tragedy with pretty, empty words. “He’s buried under snow somewhere out in those fields. And thousands of others with him. If this storm continues, we won’t find any of them until spring…whenever that will be.”

Sansa closed her eyes for a long moment. Her pained face betrayed much. She had lost another brother today. Her last brother, really. Bran Stark was too deep in the mysticism of the Old Gods to be brother, husband or son to anyone anymore. The young man had spent the entire battle in the godswood, with his palm flat against the white bark of the weirwood, its unseeing eyes streaming with rivulets of scarlet.

Tyrion had lost his last brother today too. His only brother. His only kin. Perhaps the only person in the world to ever give a damn about him. He had ignored that fact for the better part of the last twelve hours, ever since he heard the news of Jaime’s death. And he would continue to ignore it, until he found a bucket of wine to drown himself in.

But oh, how Tywin Lannister would fume and rage, to know the last Lannister standing was the little monster that put an arrow through his heart. 

“And the Whitewalkers and their armies?” Sansa wondered, breaking into his thoughts and chasing away the echo of his father’s voice, speaking those same old words that had taunted him again and again. 

_You’re no son of mine…_

“They appear to be staying dead this time,” Tyrion replied, with forced optimism. It fell flatter than he imagined in his head. Still, he continued, “When the Night King fell out of the sky, his armies fell with him, as we suspected they would. And now their bones are buried in the snow with the rest. We’ll know more when the night is over and we can see beyond the castle walls again.”

“Whenever that will be,” Sansa exhaled softly, echoing his own words. She opened her eyes and met his gaze with a fixed nature that caught him off guard. 

He had known Sansa Stark for years, since she was a child. Ha! He’d even married her once upon a time. The thought never ceased to amuse him, most bitterly. A sham, a lark, the most beautiful girl in the Seven Kingdoms married off to the monstrous half-man…

But in that look she gave him, cynical but fierce, he recognized her for perhaps the first time. Or at least the woman she had become while he wasn’t watching—Lady Sansa Stark of Winterfell, Queen in the North. Despite the events of the day and the direness of their future, he suddenly found himself thinking she was gloriously suited for it.

 _Gods, Tyrion. How many monarchs do you plan to pledge fealty to?_ He nearly laughed on the absurd thought, giddy with hunger, grief and sleeplessness. 

“Daenerys Targaryen is lost,” Sansa relayed the news to him bluntly. It didn’t come as any surprise. When Tyrion and Bronn went to search for Jon’s remains, Daenerys and her dragon were missing. Sansa continued, “Jorah Mormont too. Clegane says Ser Jorah went to find the dragon queen….”

“Of course he did,” Tyrion interjected with a huff of wry amusement, which he couldn’t sustain, knowing how Sansa’s news would end. All their stories were the same tonight. 

“Neither has returned,” she confirmed quietly, her eyes finally leaving his, to contemplate the flames once more.

Tyrion sighed and laid his head back against the chair, wondering with bitter contemplation if counting the dead would work as well as counting sheep.

They had enough to choose from.


	7. Daenerys

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Few spare moments so...as promised, mid-week post! Annnnnd oh, look what I did. Weren't expecting that, were you? ;)
> 
> Or maybe you were expecting something _exactly_ like this from oh, I don't know, S2 onward. Still waiting, darlings. Payoff, boys. Give me my damn payoff. I know, I know, they're currently too busy filming to listen. That is, too busy filming an epic resolution to my fave ship, n'est-ce pas? Ha! Well, we'll see. But thank God for fanfics, right?
> 
> Enjoy, m'dears! #mwah

**_Daenerys_ **

“There!” Daenerys spotted the abandoned cabin first. Somehow, somewhere, the moon’s silver glow was finding its way through the mass of clouds above. The bright reflection on snow lit up the landscape enough that she could pick out shapes in the road ahead, despite the hindrance of swirling snowflakes. 

Sitting up in the saddle, she pointed to the sad little structure, dark and snow-covered, with its slanting timber and broken windows. But it still had a roof and four walls and it was still standing in the half-burned woods, which was more than could be said for the ruins they had passed along the last ten miles. And they had to stop. The horse couldn’t go on much longer without rest. Neither could Jorah. 

He was wounded, far worse than he had let on. In the last hour, she’d felt him falter, hands going slack on the reins and the lean of his body falling too far into weariness, the weight of armor and the miles left to ride taking its toll. And pressed against him, under the huddle of his cloak, she had felt the slick stain of blood seeping through the breaks of armor and the soft leather beneath.

He didn’t argue this time and the mare didn’t wait for his permission. The horse turned off the path by instinct and walked directly to the lean-to shed beside the little cabin without hesitation. 

Daenerys dismounted first, sliding down the mare’s ribs while holding Jorah’s arm for balance. She landed on the one good ankle and kept the other hovering gingerly on the straw-covered floor. She reached up and steadied Jorah as he came off the mare’s back. He was such a tall man that there was little she could do, but she felt him lay a hand on her shoulder as he came down, with enough weight that she knew he might not have remained standing if she wasn’t there.

Still using her shoulder for support, he undid the mare’s saddle clumsily, fumbling in the dark for the cinches and buckles. He pulled it off and laid it on the shed floor in a heap. Exhausted by the simple task, he finally released Daenerys and leaned against the entryway pillar instead. With effort, Daenerys pulled the bridle off, stroking the horse’s long face after it came off and melting the ice clumps from the horse’s long eyelashes with her fingers. Finally out of the wind and out of that bridle, the horse seemed to sigh. The mare blew air through her chapped lips before dropping down to her knees on the nearest bed of straw. 

Daenerys picked the saddle bags off the floor and joined Jorah at the entryway. 

It was no more than ten steps to the cabin door but he struggled with them. She let him lean on her as best she could, with both her arms wrapped around his side, her head nestled just beneath his shoulder. Sharp, jagged pain shot up her calf muscle on every second step but the relief upon opening that cabin door and entering a shelter free from wind or swirling snow made up for it.

She helped Jorah to a spot near the fireplace. He groaned as she helped him sit down, with his back supported by a pillar. The floor was as good a place to rest as any other. The few pieces of rough furniture in the place were not much better and she needed the wood. She dragged a spindly, wooden chair to the fireplace and with energy borne of necessity, used her good foot to break it into kindling. 

Kneeling on the stone and digging in the saddle bags, she found flint and a flask filled with water. She took a swallow and handed the flask to Jorah, who took it gratefully, though she was dismayed to see how much effort it took for him to raise it to his lips. 

Her fingers ached with cold but crawling around in the ashes of the cabin’s fireplace, she struck fire after a couple tries, coaxing it to flame with a steady breath that she could not have managed twice. She fed the fire the bones of the chair—arms, legs, seat and all the rest. The fire crackled and complained, but soon fell into compliance, casting a warm, soft glow over the two small rooms of the little cabin.

Daenerys was tempted to throw her hands into those flames and bury her head in the ash bed beneath it, just to thaw the frost that had been eating at her veins for days. But she couldn’t rest yet.

“You should take off that armor,” she said to him, gently. Jorah was half asleep and could barely keep his eyes open. His face was raw and chapped, with ice in his stubbled beard and streaked through his sandy-colored hair. 

But at her insistence, she helped him lean forward and undo the last of the armor. He had trouble raising his left arm but she undid the clasp at his shoulder and it came away, clattering beside him on the stone floor. He breathed deeply, finally free of the burdensome weight. She pulled away the leather on his left side, and found the shirt beneath soaked in blood. She ripped the fabric, digging deeper, to the wound itself. He gritted his teeth as the shirt pulled away from the skin roughly, soaked and then frozen by the steady drip of blood. The gash was six inches wide at the side of his ribs, narrow but deep. It reopened when the shirt came away. She grimaced—he’d already lost so much blood.

“I have nothing to sew this up,” she whispered, fear coloring her tone. She pulled the saddle bags near and searched them, looking for clean cloth. She looked around, helpless. Her clothes were filthy, as were his. She continued in a small voice, “Nothing to bind it either.”

She was scared. She didn’t know what to do.

“Sear it closed,” Jorah replied softly, with his eyes still closed. The faintest smile curled over his frosty lips as he added, cleverly reminding her, “Fire and blood, Your Grace.”

Daenerys didn’t smile back, too worried that he was fading away in front of her. But she did as he commanded, looking for one of the longer metal clasps in the discarded armor on the floor. She crawled to the fire, heating the clasp with her bare hand. She felt only a glimmer of heat, no more, and held it until the metal turned red. 

Jorah clenched his teeth in pain and winced as the heated metal ran over his flesh, cauterizing the gash. She was careful and worked quickly, pushing wayward strands of her hair that threatened to obscure her vision back with her aching wrists. When she was done, she threw the clasp into the fire. It threw up sparks of flame that flickered against the brick behind it. She sat back on her knees and exhaled softly, all her remaining energy spent.

“Thank you, Khalee—,” he mumbled the words softly and fell asleep soon after, head resting back against that pillar, unable to stay awake any longer. 

“Jorah?” she whispered but couldn’t rouse him. For a dreadful, heady moment, she thought he was dead. Pressing her ear to his chest she heard his steady heartbeat beneath, as she had over the miles they had traveled in the night, the familiarity of that sound the only constant of the last few hours. She breathed a sigh of stark relief, wondering at the onslaught of saltwater tears that had gathered in her eyes so quickly in fear that…

Her body and mind both rebelled against staying awake. Her thoughts rambled and her hands and arms felt weighed down by lead weights. She might have fallen asleep right then and there. But she raised herself from his chest reluctantly—she didn’t want to tempt the wound to reopen. 

Besides, there was more cluttering nonsense in her head, despite the hour, despite the day, and she was suddenly reminded that certain things between her and Jorah Mormont remained painfully unresolved. 

She busied her hands. The fire’s warmth would keep them from freezing to death but the cabin was still frigid. She pulled his ruined shirt and leather coat back over his exposed skin…or rather, she would have.

But that’s when she noticed them. Her hands hesitated, fingers curled around the blood-stained leather. Scars criss-crossed over his entire left side, running from his muscled torso up to his shoulder and then out of sight, the left arm still fully clothed. The scars were light, hardly visible in the orange glow of fire. If she didn’t know what she was seeing, she might not have noticed them at all. But she knew where those scars came from.

The grey scale had been extensive and spread far beyond what he had revealed to her on that dusty mountain outside Vaes Dothrak.

He had revealed much to her that day.

 _Tyrion Lannister was right. I love you. I’ll always love you._

Her eyes lingered over the old wounds. There were other scars too—a Dothraki arakh’s bite here, a Meereenese spear’s glancing blow there. His devotion to her was written on his skin. 

Daenerys was tempted to trace the lines of those faint scars with her fingertips. Releasing the leather, her fingers hovered for a long moment before she brought them back, too unsure that she had any right to take more from a man who always gave her everything.

And yet…

With her palm flat against the cabin’s stone floor, she impulsively leaned up and gently, oh so gently, pressed her lips against his, with a kiss so delicate it might have been made of glass or slivers of ice. Though no, not ice…as there was no chill in Daenerys’s heart as she pulled back from the sleeping man, violet eyes wide and watching her bear knight’s face curiously, a myriad of strange emotions written on her own.

The wind outside continued to howl and moan but the fire inside the cabin crackled and snapped in defiance. 

Daenerys pulled Jorah’s ruined shirt back and laid the leather coat and half the wool cloak over him. She kept half for herself, curling up on the floor beside him and closing her eyes to dreams filled with snow, storms, dead men and…Jorah Mormont.


	8. Gilly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I heart Sam and Gilly. That is all. Xo

**_Gilly_ **

“Come to bed, Sam,” Gilly had poked her head into the library at Winterfell, where Sam was busy scribbling away under flickering candles that had burned themselves nearly to stubs in the earliest hours of morning. Sam hadn’t noticed the time. He didn’t notice when the night became morning. He didn't hear the howling winds or feel the bitter chill in the room. He hadn’t noticed much of anything, honestly, too intent on recording it all. Everything that happened the day before. And in the days before that. The armies, the snows, the dragons, the Night King, Daenerys Stormborn, Jon. All of it. He had to get it down while it was still fresh in his mind.

At Gilly’s words, Ghost’s eyes opened and the white direwolf glanced up at the wildling woman. He was lying on the floor, curled up near Sam’s feet. He had been there for some time, since he padded his way into the library hours ago, after giving up on a vain search throughout the many rooms of the Keep, searching for his master. But his master was not here. Jon was not here. Ghost kept his furry chin on his forepaws, while watching Gilly intently. She said, with some exasperation, “Sam? Did you hear me?”

“Yes, yes,” the big man muttered, not lifting his eyes from the ink and parchment. The nib of the pen scratched, scratched, scratched over his furious recordings. When he finished the page, he set it aside to dry and grabbed another. “I have to finish this first.”

“It’ll keep until tomorrow,” Gilly argued, leaning her head against the door. “We’re all worn out. Everyone went to bed hours ago.”

“Not everyone,” Sam answered, sparing one quick glance at Ghost, whose forlorn eyes met Sam’s in mutual agreement. They had made a silent pact, the man and the wolf. Neither would be sleeping this night. 

“Alright, everyone but wild animals then,” she corrected, with her usual brand of dry observation. She released her hold on the iron doorknob and walked over to his cluttered desk. She was dressed in a nightgown but had wrapped herself in a heavy wool shawl. More than anyone else in the northern castle, Gilly was accustomed to cold, stormy nights. But even she shivered at the sound of the fierce storm still raging outside. The candles flickered on every draft that swept through the library.

Her hands lingered on a row of dusty volumes lining the sagging shelf behind Sam. She let her fingers run over the old bindings, raised text and frayed edges. Of all the strange, new wonders she’d seen below the Wall, fine castles and silk clothes, great feasts and steel armor, stone roads and warm weather—she didn’t care for any of it. 

Except books. Gilly loved books. And words. And the fact that a few slashes on paper could suddenly take her mind halfway around the world or far into the past. There was more magic in reading than these southern lords and ladies realized. _Most of the southerners_ , she amended in her head, thinking of little Shireen Baratheon, the sweet princess with the scarred face who first taught Gilly the shape and sound of the black slashes on these pages. Letters and words. S for snake and serpent and sadness. S for Sam. 

And Sam too. He knew the value of words. Gilly could easily remember the vivid joy written all over his face when he rejoined her and Little Sam after that first hour in the Citadel at Oldtown, after exploring the great library of the maesters. He described, with such wonder, the towers upon towers of books and scrolls and parchments that filled every nook and cranny of the place. Books had told Sam how to kill White Walkers and where to find underground stores of dragonglass and how to cure the same disease that had scarred Princess Shireen’s face and turned Gilly’s sisters into mad women.

A book had told them the truth about Jon Snow.

Her hand fell from the shelves, fingers lingering over one more random binding as she drew her hand back. She wandered to Sam's writing desk, where she picked up the parchment that sat drying. She read the words Sam had forced onto the paper: _Aegon Targaryen, also known as Jon Snow, was among the dead._

Gilly frowned. The statement was too lifeless, too exact and missing…something. 

“Sam…,” she began timidly.

Not exactly angry but certainly frustrated, Sam put down his pen and took a deep breath. He kept his voice level, as always, but she heard the strain behind his words, “Gilly, I have to do this. I have to write it down, do you understand? If we survive this winter, this story will need to be preserved…so that it can’t happen again.”

“I know, but do you have to do it all tonight?” she asked gently, worried about him. She took her same wandering hand and brought it down to Sam's bent head, brushing it through his brown hair tenderly. His features softened at the caress, her soft touch breaking down the barrier he had built around himself—in the cold, familiar safety of records and recitations of names, numbers and dates.

He brought the ink-stained fingers of his left hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose as his eyes began to sting. He closed them briefly, while the candles flickered in another heavy draft. Gilly moved closer to him, her elbow resting on his shoulder and her hand still lingering in his hair. He raised his arm around her waist and brought her closer still, in a silent side-embrace that she was only too willing to give. 

He shook his head slowly, to himself, not to her. He only roused himself again with steely effort, forcing another sharp inhale of breath, although his lungs weren’t quite up for it. He kept Gilly close while he finished, taking up the pen once more. Reaching for the parchment still clutched in her other hand, he placed it back on the writing desk in front of him and then crossed out and scribbled an addition above the very line that had caught her eye in the first place.

In terrible silence, Sam handed the page back to Gilly and waited, watching her expression as her gaze flickered over the simple words he’d written, just black slashes on a white page: 

_Jon Snow, my brother, is dead._

Gilly set the parchment aside and brought her other hand around to the side of Sam’s grief-stricken face, where she wiped away all the tears she found there.


	9. Lyanna

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyanna Mormont is one of my fave characters. Have I mentioned that? But let’s be honest, have I ever met a Mormont I didn’t like? No, the answer is no. #TeamMormont #BearsAreBest
> 
> Thanks to SmashingTeacups for some assistance with a couple minor characters and for her general awesomeness. <3
> 
> Also, just FYI, four of the next five chapters will be Jorah and/or Dany. Enjoy the slow burn while it lasts ;)

**_Lyanna_ **

When Lyanna Mormont returned to the old Mormont Keep on Bear Island, it was with a world-weary scowl on her young face. 

This was not unusual, as the Lady of Bear Island was not fond of smiling, not even in her cradle, they say. And who could blame her? She was born at the very end of the long summer, with feathered frost already painting up the glass windows in the great hall and ice forming at the edge of shallow ponds in the island’s thick spruce and pine forests.

The days had only grown colder and darker since. Lord Eddard Stark’s head mounted on a spike in King’s Landing. Her mother killed in the War of Five Kings, her sister butchered at the Red Wedding, her uncle slaughtered above the Wall. No less than two Kings of the North, the Young Wolf and the White Wolf, both gone now and thousands of others with them. The dead, at least, were defeated…but at what cost? 

Lyanna set her mouth in a firm line. They should never have been forced into fighting off dead men and women anyway. The Old Gods entertained blasphemy when they allowed such an evil to rise unchecked. The waste of it all, battlefield after battlefield littered with corpses, weighed heavy on her mind. 

The moment she heard Jon Snow and Rhaegal had followed the Night King to Winterfell, Lyanna called the surviving Mormonts back from the Winterfell moors. The battle was over, one way or another, no matter her continued part in the doomed play. She would make her stand on Bear Island, against the dead or the winter storms or both. It didn’t matter. If Jon was the king he pretended to be, he would not fail.

And, of course, he did not fail…despite the disappointing truth of his heritage.

Lyanna had been willing to pledge her House to a Stark bastard. House Mormont would never stand down for the sake of a formality. That was southern weakness, to miss the forest for the trees. As she told all those men at Winterfell, she didn't care what his name was. Ned Stark's blood was enough for her. And arguably, her faith and allegiance had inspired the other Northern houses to follow suit. But, from the moment she heard it spoken, the knowledge that Jon Snow’s father was not Eddard Stark, after all, but a _damn_ dragon—Rhaegar Targaryen, the son and heir of the Mad King himself. Oh, it sat ill with Lyanna Mormont.

_We know no king but the king in the North whose name is Stark._

She had written those words herself, pressing them into a scroll addressed to Stannis Baratheon with all the rigid defiance and nerve that was etched into her family’s stubborn words: _Here we stand_.

Well, his name hadn't been Stark when she pledged her forces to him. And, in the end, there was still Stark blood running through his veins, she supposed. Though what unsteady blood that turned out to be. Lyanna Mormont’s frown darkened at the thought.

She couldn't decide which part of the revelation upset her most—that Jon Snow was a true-born Targaryen or that she herself had been named for a Northern girl who ran off with a damn dragon.

And for what? A single wreath of winter roses? A bloody death in an ill-named tower? Gods, her namesake was the most foolish of all women.

Still, she would admit it. Jon Snow did his duty. He proved his worth. The army of the dead was no more, banished back to whatever hell they’d sprung from. 

But the blizzards they left behind might kill them all yet. On the Winterfell moors, she’d watched those unearthly clouds churn and roll over themselves like black seawater and she felt a promise on the brisk wind that turned her cold Northern blood even colder. The weather would not quit as the dead had done. And it would freeze them alive, given half a chance.

So she called her men back and went home, despite the fact that home was further north. South may have been the wiser choice but she was a Mormont, and Bear Island was where she would stand. Defiant and stubborn to the last. Let the cold winds blow. Let the snows pile up. With that grim scowl, she would stare them down yet. 

Besides, Lyanna knew, deep in her soul, that this was a storm that would bring ice and snow to Dorne so there was no running from its frosty clutches.

Lyanna and her vanguard arrived on Bear Island near dawn, their torches blinking out from the earthen palisade surrounding the old Keep. The storm’s tendrils brought in flurries off the frigid waters but its ragged, raging center was southerly and east, still hovering above Winterfell. In the journey over, Lyanna watched the flutter of her green, bear-emblazoned banners warily. The wind was with them, but for how long? 

The channel was in a dangerous humor, turning frothy at times and churning up fickle waters. Their crossing had been rough. But she still had men on the other side that needed to be brought home. Hence, the particular scowl that graced her features as she walked into the Keep and regarded the familiar stone and wooden walls of her home with grave impatience.

“How many from Bear Island are still unaccounted for?” she asked Maester Morlan and Captain Seffius Claver, when the men joined her in the hall.

“At least a dozen, my lady, not counting those that we know fell in battle,” Maester Morlan confirmed. Guessing her thoughts, he insisted again, just as he had in the half-frozen harbor near Deepwood Motte, where they boarded ships to make the narrow crossing, “We could not wait for them with those gales on the horizon. Some may have turned back to find refuge at Winterfell.”

Lyanna turned her dark scowl away from the walls and on her Maester. She could do without his optimistic hypothesizing. The Maester found himself shrinking from her piercing gaze, despite the thirteen-year-old girl’s height, which was no more than half his own. He shuffled his feet uneasily, the links on his chain making soft metallic sounds in the emptiness of the hall.

“In the interest of bringing home the wounded, I listened to your advice and gave orders to cross the channel,” Lyanna’s voice was strong as she answered the Maester bluntly. “But if you think I will leave a _single_ Bear Island man, woman or child stranded on the tainted shores of the mainland, you are _utterly_ mistaken.”—she turned her attention from her Maester to the tall, dark-bearded man beside him— “Captain Claver?”

“Yes, my lady?” The seafaring man had been favored by the young mistress of Bear Island as her captain of choice, in all these recent journeys back and forth across the channel, called to Winterfell twice—first to fight that bastard Ramsey Snow and second to stand with Jon ( _Aegon Targaryen_ , Lyanna reminded herself again, bitterly) against the legions upon legions of dead men. 

The captain was short-spoken and naturally solemn. His skill in turning a skiff through winter seas was unfailing and steady. He had spent most of his life fishing the cold, ice-cluttered bays around the Frozen Shore. He was never reckless, he was never impulsive. The diminutive Lady Mormont approved.

“I ask that you cross the channel to Deepwood Motte and retrieve the rest of our men. If even one is waiting on that shore, I ask that you go and bring them home,” she said, tempering the usual command with a request, as she knew that she sent him out on an angry sea that might swallow the captain and his crew with little provocation. 

But Seffius Claver did not hesitate. He bowed his head in respect, “Of course, my lady.” With his usual sparseness of words, he said no more, but left the hall immediately to make the crossing.


	10. Jorah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unexpected double feature! Wha-aaat? Yes, because you deserve it, I deserve it and Jorah definitely deserves it.
> 
> Enjoy, m’dears! Xo

**_Jorah_**

_Wake up, Jorah. You have to wake up, son. Now._

His father’s growling voice was in his head. He hadn't heard his father's voice in years and yet, there it was, as if he'd spoken with the Old Bear only the day before—gruff, resolute and commanding as always. 

_Take care of the island._ Jeor Mormont, clad in Night's Watch black, gripped Jorah's shoulder once before releasing him and sailing off to the mainland. It was the height of the long summer and the deep blue waters surrounding Bear Island held only the chill of Northern waters, not the freeze of Arctic seas.

With Longclaw still at his belt, Jorah stood on the Bear Island docks and watched until the white mast on his father's ship disappeared into a swell of clouds on the horizon. Lynesse, his young bride, had returned to the Keep before the ship even left the harbor, upset with a discovered tear in the lace collar of her day dress, fussing with it and pulling out threads in her haste, muttering about the lack of acceptable fabric on this gods-forsaken island and the heavy-handed needlework she might expect from any repairs made by Maege's girls. 

Lynesse said her complaints loudly and within earshot of Jorah’s aunt and cousins, all present on the docks that day to bid farewell to their kin. But Maege and her daughters, from Dacey to the baby, Lyanna, ignored the southern beauty's sulky complaints with little effort.

The sun broke through those white, cumulous clouds and glinted off the sheer whiteness of the ship's mast and it reappeared for one last second, before slip, slip, slipping away. Jeor's ship vanished out of sight. Water continued to lap gently against the wood pillars supporting the island’s main dock, gulls fought over oysters on the sandy beach, while terns and gannets dove at the sight of silver fins breaking the surface in the bay. 

As the ship slipped from view, Maege and her daughters finally followed Lynesse up to the Keep. But Jorah remained on the docks for a long moment, alone, eyes still on that calm horizon. No more than an hour had passed since the Old Bear's departure, and yet the absence in losing sight of his father's ship was keen. There are some things that are known, not out of a knowledge of senses, sight, taste, touch or sound—but because they are written out in stark veracity and screamed across the chambers of our hearts. 

Jorah would not see his father again. He could not have known then the nature of those events that would make it so—betrayal, exile, mutiny and death. These were ugly words that tore at Jorah's soul and colored his face with shame for himself and anger for his father's sake. But he remembers knowing the truth, as if the sea breeze rose off the white-tipped waves to whisper it in his ear.

_You will never see your father again._ It said, in a demi-god's crystalline voice, cruel and empty in its vivid hopelessness. The breeze turned cold and grey and the sky cluttered with grey clouds that blocked out the sun's golden rays. 

_No, you'll see him again. Perhaps not in this life, but you will see your father again._ A young woman with blonde hair dismissed the wind's words with a mother's chiding. She suddenly appeared beside him, at his elbow, sharing his gaze over the cold, blue waters. Her words rooted strongly, as he wanted to believe them. She was flesh and blood while the wind was vapor. And she spoke the longing of his heart, not the fear of his soul. He was astonished. 

He glanced down at the girl who stood with him on the docks. With that blonde hair? Had Lynesse returned to his side, after all? But he remembered that part of the memory clearly. His wife locked herself in her bedchamber that day, refusing to come out until he promised to order a shipment of lace from Oldtown to fix her ruined collar. And this girl's hair was more silver than gold. He was tempted to reach out and touch the strands that escaped her braids.

She looked up at him then, with wide, violet eyes. Her small smile, tinged with sadness for his sake, split apart the clouds above and the sun returned to dance on the blue waters. _Daenerys's smile. On Bear Island. In a summer that passed long ago._

He was dreaming, he suddenly realized. As if in agreement, the Old Bear's growls returned with vehemence.

_Wake up, Jorah! You have miles to go and a storm to outrun. You have to wake up now._

Jorah blinked once and then twice more, gaining his bearings quickly as the dream landscape melted away and the events of the night before came flooding back to the forefront of his mind. The little fire that Daenerys had built in the cabin smoldered and was threatening to go out. It choked and sputtered on its last embers. The false warmth of the dream faded swiftly, leaving his skin cold…except for his left side, where Daenerys was still sleeping under the cloak, curled up beside him tightly. 

The gash on his ribs stung angrily but it was no longer bleeding. He ached all over and a few hours of sleep had not chased away the overwhelming desire to sleep for days. But it was desire now and not need.

And Jorah had plenty experience ignoring desire.

His gaze fell on the woman sleeping next to him on the cabin floor. As in the dream, he was tempted to reach out and touch her hair, which was tangled and wild and falling across her blood-and-mud streaked features. But he kept his hand back.

Oh yes, he had plenty experience ignoring desire.

A thin, grey light filtered in through the cracked and frosted cabin windows. It spoke of dawn, but weakly. If the sun was shining, it was behind hurricane-bred clouds. Though perhaps, by sheer luck, the storm was still staying west of them. The howl of wind still gnashed against the timbers, as it had all night, but its violence was currently more bark than bite.

Jorah was careful as he pushed himself up from the floor, quietly, extricating himself from her touch, with effort. She had rolled against him in the night, her hand lightly clutching at his forearm and her knee grazing his thigh. He felt numbness as he pulled away and a passing compulsion to return and let the tenuous, if unconscious, physical bonds between them remain. If only for a few moments more.

No matter how many times he felt her touch, it was always the same. He couldn't describe it. One sense should not overwhelm the rest with such fearsome power. And having never experienced it before he met her, made it difficult to explain. But Daenerys's mere touch, her hands reaching out and grasping his, her fingers stroking the side of his face—oh, he succumbed to it without choice. Pulling away from her touch was like willingly leaving lush, green shores for a barren, cold wasteland. And what kind of fool would do that? 

Jorah Mormont, apparently. He recalled her reaching for his hands, taking both of his in hers on the salt-sprayed beach at Dragonstone. The expectant look in her eyes caught him by surprise and rendered him speechless. He couldn't remember the words that fled his lips. Words…words had never been enough. Her beautiful eyes sparked with something unexpressed and, in that moment, he was her captive. She sunk her small hands into the curves of his fingers, and he grasped them tightly, his thumbs tracing her knuckles gently, both waiting for…

But as Jon Snow came down the beach, Jorah made a decision. A decision that had been simmering in his head since that day he returned to her side, on the cliffs, with all three dragons flying in the air above them, alive and confident, ready to take on the world. Like Jon Snow, who he found standing beside Daenerys, with all Ned Stark's brooding nobility written over his young features. Jorah thought he saw her future with too much clarity.

He was mistaken, they were all mistaken. But he didn't know that on the beach at Dragonstone.

So he bent down and pressed a kiss to the back of her hands. He released her, he stepped back. As was his habit, as was his sworn duty. He would serve and protect her until his dying breath, but gods help him if he ever expected more. Still, as her fingers slipped out of his, like water rushing over stones, he felt hollow—cold, numb and hollow.

As he rose from the cabin floor, and his forearm slipped from her sleeping grasp, he felt the same sensation. Hollow. But his father's insistent voice didn't let him linger on the feeling. There was no time for that now.

Thinking he'd give her a few more precious minutes of sleep, he slipped out of the cabin quietly to ready the horse. 

The wind was playing games. And the sky was as fickle-natured as his dream version. As he led the watered and saddled mare to the cabin door, he spared a glance back towards the path they'd followed through the ruins of the Wolfswood. In daylight, he watched multiple storm fronts colliding along the entire eastern horizon, North from the Wall and south beyond Winterfell, with all that same dark, wintery fury it lashed out in the night before. The rising sun peeked out once and then immediately dove for cover. 

As those fronts clashed, he saw sparks of lightening in the distance and the wind appeared to change. One stiff breeze in the wrong direction and they would be in the midst of it. No more flurries but deep snows that would strand them in the forest, buried in cold, white graves. 

But with each mile west, they were slowly being backed up to the edge of the sea.

In lingering weariness, Jorah considered staying here, in this wreck of a cabin…just until the storm passed. At least it had a roof and four walls. But there was no food, little water and nothing left to burn. And home was calling for him, even stronger than before, like a beacon to a sailor caught in the Drowned God's clutches.

_Look to the Island._ His father's voice agreed.

He had no idea if they could continue to stay ahead of the storm or how they'd cross the channel if they made it in time…but with no other choice, Jorah tied the mare to one of the cabin's old, slanted pillars and quickly went inside to wake Daenerys.


	11. Bran

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, m'dear! Your comments/kudos make me happy :)
> 
> ...unlike Bran, who became totally insufferable as soon as the whole Three-Eyed Raven transformation happened. *heavy eye roll* But hey, an all-seeing being is helpful in moving the story along sometimes. Also, p.s. I miss Meera. She was cool. *writes note to self - make time for future Meera chapter*

**_Bran_ **

The Three-Eyed Raven weathers all storms with the patience of a weirwood tree's deepest roots or the old bones of glaciers at the top of the world. Even this storm, which threatened to be the worst in a generation, the kind of storm that would be talked about for a hundred years to come— _this too shall pass_ , the Three-Eyed Raven knew. 

_I've seen it all. Life and death, rise and ruin, tide and time. Spinning, spinning, spinning._

Brandon Stark sat in his wheeled chair, beside a merry, crackling fire that the servants refilled twice between midday and evening, and pondered much. He'd asked to be left alone and, though Arya came and sat with him for a time, silently, pondering her own deep thoughts, they granted his request. 

His mind and his body were in different places, his gaze vacant, seemingly stuck on the orange flames but distracted, as he sifted through the memories of the world, reflecting on the ways they flowed like a raging river, white-capped and furious, tumbling down a great waterfall, scene after scene, hour after hour.

Here he perched, as a black-winged raven in the branches of a gnarled oak tree far beyond the ruins of the Wall. There he lingered, watching the unholy origins of the Night King birthed once again. The man was bound to a tree, fighting against his restraints. The Children of the Forest were gathered around him, afraid but determined, forcing that organic blade into his chest cavity as he screamed and screamed. The screams rang out with piercing familiarity. Bran returned to this spot so often, as it was the North's most painful memory and could not be forgotten. 

_Should not be forgotten._

Blood dripped down from the man's chest, until it froze in red beads that burst when touched. The scene flickered and Bran watched the trickle of blood mirrored in the eyes of the weirwood trees, as their lidless eyes cried red, first in thin strips, then thicker and thicker, until buckets of blood stained their trunks and roots, pain absorbed into the white wood itself, all for the sake of this memory's safe-keeping. 

That blood dripped steadily onto scarlet leaves of an old autumn's winnowing. They blew away in lukewarm breezes, licked with frost, that fluttered up to the raven's thermals and pushed him a league south and a thousand winters forward. 

Now Bran flew with the Night King on the back of Daenerys Targaryen's once gold-scaled dragon. He was the Night King in that moment…or some part of him was anyway. He felt his own ice-cold hands clutch at the leather reins, his grip tightening in fierce anticipation as the demon-creature caught sight of Jon's black hair and his wolf-crested cloak, streaming in the wind. The Night King was pleased, thinking he had the element of surprise, but the pleasure lasted for seconds only, as the young King of the North suddenly turned his mount sharply and descended upon him. Rhaegal's jaws opened wide and his talons stretched out for a death blow. 

The scene shifted and Bran felt the free fall of descent, as he found himself with Jon as the young king, the lost Targaryen prince, twirled through the air. The cloak Sansa had made him came loose and broke free, the Night King's hands were grasping, scratching, both of them hurtling towards the ground and Jon's gleaming, silver sword drawn back and plunged so deep into the enemy's heart, where shards of the Children's blade were lodged still. The howling scream of the Night King echoed across a generation and blew Bran back in a flurry of black feathers.

He came to rest in the canopy of the deep woods.

_Brandon, come down now!_ His mother commanded with a gravelly power on his name. She was up in the branches with him, dressed in dark green, holding out her hand to seize his own. But she wasn't his mother any longer. The Three-Eyed Raven has no mother. In the vision, he watched Catelyn Stark's features blanch, sensing the change in her son. Still, she pleaded with him, _Brandon, come down!_

But he was gone already, falling, flying? Was there a difference? It was all mad joy and agony and that familiar spinning, spinning, spinning.

Time spun backwards. He was pulled further North again, on winds high and bright, under a summer sky, all the way to the edge of the sea and beyond, breezing over an island where he watched Ser Jorah Mormont bid his father farewell. Ser Jorah shifted his step on the dock and Bran watched the summer sun glint off the bear pommel and hilt of that same silver sword that Jon had wielded in his last moments.

He kept his raven-form for a string of long moments, always so unwilling to let go of flight. In a moment of pure instinct, Bran dove with the terns and gulls in the sunshine-happy bay, feeling the cool water dribble down his throat, as he followed the ship that carried the Old Bear back across the water. But distance and time splintered and time moved forward with unnatural speed, to this very hour, where the skies were dark in shadowed twilight and the wind decided to change its course, shifting decidedly west. 

Bran saw a small ship with green, bear banners floating near the rough-water coast, its sure-footed captain on deck, speaking with his first mate and pointing out two weary figures waiting on the shoreline.

_They survived the battle._ Bran noted, as he saw the Targaryen queen and the Mormont knight, both wounded and battle-weary, but standing on that shoreline, nonetheless. The Three-Eyed Raven felt nothing at the revelation. No surprise, no joy, no grief, nothing. 

But the boy Bran, who had once scaled castle walls and ash and oak trees, to climb as high into the rafters of the sky as he could manage without wings, still lived somewhere in the Three-Eyed Raven's head. 

It was Bran's heart that warmed every time Catelyn Stark reached out her hand in his visions. And Bran, good, sweet boy that he was, who tried so hard to snatch back the cruel, lifeless words that the Three-Eyed Raven spoke to Meera Reed when he told her to return to her family, that he was done with her, that she was of no further use.

_I'm sorry, Meera._

And now, Bran gasped in delight, seeing through the eyes of the Three-Eyed Raven the same sight that had thrilled him a hundred times over and would thrill him a hundred times more.

It was a dragon, black and magnificent. It flew over the ship in the harbor, its shadow darkening the waters as it passed with outstretched wings. The dragon rejoined his weary mother as she crossed the channel to Bear Island.


	12. Daenerys

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here you go, lovelies! New chapter for you. Oh Dany, honey, don't look now but I think you're falling... ;)

**_Daenerys_**

Somewhere north of Deepwood Motte, Daenerys and Jorah reached the coast. The sea was sloshing about restlessly, saltwater spraying against the black rocks with occasional shows of strength, still unsure of whether to wait on the storm in the sky or start throwing its own fits beforehand. 

Near twilight, they rode through a clutter of small fishing villages. In another time, the villages might have been bustling with activity this time of day. As the orange sun set, fishermen would be coming in from the water, helping each other unload their catch from ship's deck to wooden crates. Salted barrels would be piled in even rows on the small but sturdy docks. But now, the docks were empty and the winding village paths were utterly vacant and dismally quiet. The thatched roofs were all dusted with snow, windows frosted, without a wisp of smoke coming from any of their brick and stone chimneys.

The villagers were long gone. Perhaps they had answered Jon's call and now lay dead on the Winterfell moors. Perhaps they saw the gathering storm and headed south early, knowing what was coming.

For it was certainly coming. The storm winds teased the change first. Daenerys stood on the salt-splashed docks while Jorah inspected the condition of those few fishing boats that had been left behind. She watched the snow flurries scatter down the shoreline and spin wildly, twisting up into little white cyclones that were dashed to pieces in competing breezes, salt and storm winds colliding like old rivals. 

It was still so bitterly cold. She held her arms close to her chest as she cast a glance back beyond the rooftops of the abandoned village, to the eastern skyline where the horizon was painted in shades of widow's black and cinder grey. 

The clouds behind them were speeding across the sky, catching up, like a jaguar prowling through the forest, catching a scent and rushing towards it, jaws wide and aiming for the pulsing throat.

Jorah had been relentless all day, pushing them forward through pain, cold, hunger and the overwhelming desire to succumb to the futility of their race against time and storm. He'd barely said a word since waking her that morning, too intent on the road ahead and putting as many miles between them and the claws of the storm as possible. When he did speak, it was only to mutter, "we're running out of time," and she didn't know if he said the words as a reminder to her or himself.

Now, the clock was about to strike. Time had indeed run out. Standing on that desolate dock at the edge of the sea with nowhere left to run, Daenerys should feel fear, she knew. But she didn't. Apprehension, perhaps. Maybe. She couldn't be sure. Her emotions were thoroughly muddled. 

Her gaze flickered back to Jorah, as the man worked tirelessly, checking the fishing boats and rigging for a craft that wouldn’t founder on rough seas, and she found herself raising her cold fingers up to her frosted lips, wondering why she suddenly felt fire at the memory of touching those lips to his. 

The change seemed sudden. She'd felt such an aching numbness on the moors above Winterfell, surrounded by corpses and with her dragons falling from the skies. If they had died in those first hours running from it all, she might have surrendered to the inevitable without protest. But the night before…she found herself, impossibly, feeling hope. She shouldn’t be so surprised. The smallest wind can bring the greatest storm. The smallest root can grow the highest oak. A single kiss can awaken something so… _what is happening to me?_

All day, she’d felt it. There was some new charged energy in the air when she looked at Jorah and when she felt his touch. Did he feel it too? No, likely not. He was too intent on saving their lives to realize that Daenerys was suddenly following the movements of his strong, work-worn hands with too much interest and wondering why the raspy sound of her name falling off his lips now sent a shiver of flame through her entire being.

She almost laughed aloud. The notion currently taking up space in her head was absurd. She was beyond tired, bruised and battered and yet, she couldn’t stop thinking about how it might feel to walk over to Jorah Mormont, take that fraying rope out of his hands and cast it aside. She would take his hands and guide them around her waist, watching his pale blue eyes widen in shocked uncertainty. Oh, but she would shock him further. She imagined reaching up and pulling his mouth down to hers, to know how it would feel to have him kiss her back.

The daydream lingered in her head for more minutes than she could account for. 

_Focus, Dany._ She told herself finally, forcing her fingers down from her lips and turning her attention away from her bear knight, with effort. 

Still, as her gaze now turned to the open water, she felt that spark of hope remain, and all those other strange, tangled feelings simmered away, unwilling to be doused. Like the unexpected sight of crocus bursting through snow, or a ship's mast visible on a dark horizon. _A ship…_

"Jorah!" she suddenly exclaimed, in sheer wonderment, uncrossing her arms at once. She pointed out over the water and at the ship bobbing up and down on the choppy sea.

### 

"You cut that close, Mormont," Seffius Claver pronounced to Jorah bluntly, as they boarded Claver's ship. The captain had spotted them himself, two figures moving on the dilapidated docks of Wren Harbor, and sent a rowboat ashore to gather them. As they came alongside the larger vessel, the ferryman kept the smaller boat steady as Jorah lifted Daenerys up to the waiting arms of the captain and his first mate. Then they reached down and helped Jorah climb up after her. 

The captain knew Jorah well, Daenerys could tell by his manner and the lack of a formal greeting. Northerners had an uncanny ability to pick up exactly where they left off, even with years between meetings. It was as if time passed slower up here, the influence of old oaths and forgotten times still palpable, even to a girl who had been born thousands of miles away. Captain Claver continued, almost curious, "How'd you know I'd be here?"

"I didn't," Jorah answered, with candor. 

He had confessed as much to Daenerys, almost as soon as he woke her that morning, reaching down and squeezing her hand gently until her eyelids fluttered open. 

_We have to go. I'm not sure how we'll get there, but I'm taking you someplace safe. I'm taking us home._

She wished he'd said her name. It was a frivolous thing to want, but bleary-eyed and coming up from half-dreams that teased her heart, that was her first thought.

Her second was that she believed him, just as she believed, when she stepped into the fire that would usher Khal Drogo's soul into the Nightlands, that she would walk away unscathed when the flames finally burned out. She believed him because he was so certain and because she'd seen that look in his blue eyes so many times before. He would not fail her. Even if it killed him, he would not fail.

_And it might kill you yet,_ she thought miserably, after Captain Claver ordered his crew to turn the ship north and head for home, and Jorah sat down wearily on the nearest flat surface. She hovered near him, sinking beside him on the narrow bench which ran the length of the starboard rail. She reached her hand up to turn his face towards her, noting his feverish pallor and the heat of his skin, despite the chill in the sea air. She wasn't able to clean that wound properly and there was a good chance it would fester if left for long without proper tending. 

"I'm all right," he promised her, reaching up and pulling her hand down from where it lingered against his too warm cheek. He let his thumb run over the curve of her palm. He held it for a long moment, to prove his words were so, but then released her hand back to her own keeping. She wished he'd kept it. She remembered wishing he'd kept it that day at Dragonstone too. 

But they were surrounded by a dozen sailors so she swallowed her disappointment and instead, busied her hands in ministering to her still-useless ankle. Under her breath, she prayed that the winds pushed them to their destination quickly, where a maester might force Jorah to take the rest and medicine he sorely needed. 

She wasn't sure which gods she should pray to but the further north they traveled, the more she felt the presence of the Old Earth, taking on the physical shapes of those crusty forest-creatures and sea-dwellers that appeared in all those songs and poems that filled up the books Jorah had given her on the day they first met. She knew nothing of the Old Gods but she prayed to them anyway.

_I don't know who you are or what power you have in this place, but don't take him away from me._

He was the only familiar face in a ship full of strangers. Every single person she had ever known or loved was dead or lost to her forever…except for him. She couldn't lose him too. Especially not now…

_And why is that, Dany? Why is it so important now?_ She asked herself. The question was a fair one but her emotions were still too raw and cluttered, she dared not answer it. Not even in her own head.

So she continued praying instead, a two word plea to the gods of Jorah's forefathers, _Please don't._

After teasing for so long, the winds changed decisively in that moment, whether in answer to Daenerys's prayers or at the whims of that angry storm, as it had feasted at Winterfell long enough and now decided to turn its hungry eyes elsewhere. Either way, the sails swelled and drank their fill of the approaching gale, gulping it up and speeding along the dusk-painted waters to Bear Island.

With the strong sea breeze, came a large, black shadow. It swept over the deck, its massive wingspan outlined with clear lines and edges. Daenerys turned her gaze to the sky immediately and saw Drogon fly overhead in a long glide, make a sweeping pass along the breaking surf of the mainland shores before curving back again. 

He didn't touch down but continued to follow the ship, skimming the moody waters beside them. The sailors on Claver's ship had never seen a dragon, and like every other man and woman before them, they gasped and spoke excitedly amongst themselves at the wondrous sight of a truly mythical creature. Daenerys took her hands from her swollen, bruised ankle and aching calf muscles. A small smile crept over her grave expression as she straightened up, eyes following the dragon's movements exactly. 

Beside her, Jorah's weary features lightened by a degree as well, though Daenerys didn't witness the change, as she was still watching the beat of Drogon's wings against the resilient starlight of the western horizon. Unlike every other soul on that ship, her knight's eyes were not on the black dragon in the grey skies, but rather, on the woman sitting beside him and the welcome sight of that smile curving over her lips.


	13. Jorah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in posting this one! Real life work project got in the way of my normal mid-week writing/editing time. Anyway, after this chapter, there will be a slight time jump. Just a few weeks but it's important if you want this slow burn to ever end. And I assume we do? Yeah, seven seasons and 20,000+ words of slow burn seems like just enough to me haha. 
> 
> To all of you reading this fic, thank you, thank you! Hope you're enjoying it. For those of you who leave reviews/kudos, mwah! You guys make me smile :)

**_Jorah_ **

The dragon stayed with Claver's ship until they were within sight of Bear Island. Near land, Drogon veered off the ship's course, banking along the curves and cuts of the island's rocky shores to explore its rugged boundaries. Ever the survivor, he would find himself a safe place to hunker down and hide from the storm that nipped at their heels. As they disembarked, Jorah, Daenerys and the others watched the dragon dip beyond the Island's pine and spruce-cluttered cliffs. 

"He won't go far," Jorah reassured Daenerys, as the dragon disappeared from view. "There's a labyrinth of sea caves just behind that inlet. He'll find them."

Daenerys nodded absently, her eyes too busy surveying the sea-and-forest landscape before her. Dawn's light, obscured by black storm clouds, cast the whole island in an eerie vernal glow, all shades of grey-violet and stunning.

The island's natural beauty was breathtaking, wild and remote, carved up in mountainous ranges and evergreens that ended abruptly at the coast. 

From the crescent slip of harbor, she had to crane her neck to see the summit of those cliffs around them, so high they nearly reached the cinder clouds above. The tall pines were frosted with snow but evergreen still, standing grave and silent in the blasts of wind coming across the sea from the mainland. She could pick out white tributaries of iced-over streams cutting deep fissures in the jagged cuts of green, grey and black hills. At the edge of the harbor, two narrow waterfalls, still unfrozen and both more than two hundred feet high, poured out their white spill like a broken chain of diamonds. 

Mist rolled off the water like smoke. The crash of water, from cliff to seabed, roared in a strong, soothing hum. 

"It's more beautiful than you said," she murmured, more to herself than to him. Now it was Jorah's turn to nod. Words would never do the place justice. He'd been all over the world and never found anything like it. 

_Home_ , he sighed inwardly, as he led her up from the docks. The path to the Mormont Keep above was achingly familiar.

Jorah felt an odd sensation, taking those last few steps up that steep path. The haunt of his footsteps lingered here, as stalwart as the permafrost. His father's steps and his grandfather's before him were there too, etched in deep. But so many years had passed since the last time he had climbed this hill that he suddenly felt like a ghost, returning to the place of death. For it was a sort of death that had chased him away from here. 

_Death of honor, death of name. Can you say now that you've reclaimed them?_

The heaviness of past deeds and old times weighed him down. He felt pulled down by gravity, these final steps draining him quickly. Although…to be fair, perhaps that was a physical reaction to yesterday's blood loss and a spiking fever that was currently raging in his head. 

Injured or not, he'd snapped the roots of this place off sharply when he fled the Island. Two minutes back and he felt as if those severed roots were digging into the earth, attempting to find a hold, but finding only frost, cold ground and hard memories. 

He felt years older and grey, so grey. Like he was fading, his body dissolving into the frosted mist hovering at the mouth of those waterfalls. He nearly gave in to it. 

But one look at Daenerys, who was now watching his face with a mixture of concern and apprehension, and he righted himself once more. This was a foreign place for her. She was a stranger and a Targaryen. Knowing his family's inherent distaste for the southern lords, he knew she would not be welcome here. And would he? Seffius Claver had no qualms about bringing them to safety but would Lyanna be pleased giving refuge to her disgraced cousin and the silver-haired woman he brought with him? 

The idea was unlikely.

He didn't share these thoughts. Instead, he did what he always did. He took Daenerys's arm and helped her climb the hill, steadying her hobbled steps even as he barely managed his own.

As Drogon found a seaside cave to nestle in and as the blizzard and the sea started a vicious tussle that would last a fortnight, Jorah and Daenerys were received in the Great Hall by Lyanna Mormont.

Of all the cargo Seffius Claver might have returned with, Jorah knew that Lyanna, this dark-haired child-woman before him, did not expect this. That was obvious. She sat at the center chair of the long table in the Great Hall, where her mother, Maege, had sat before her, and where Jorah himself had sat once upon a time. Her maester sat at her left side. The right chair remained unoccupied, its prior resident likely buried with the rest in the fields above Winterfell. 

Others hovered at the entrance to the hall, lingering in the shadows, too curious to stay away after hearing the news spreading throughout the Keep like wildfire. News that Jorah Mormont, their former lord and master, had finally returned…and brought the dragon queen with him.

When Lyanna met Jorah's gaze, the young girl's dark brown eyes sparked with hushed up anger and tense annoyance.

"Welcome, Ser Jorah," she greeted tersely, in her thick Northern soprano, with little warmth spared on the formal words. She did not address Daenerys but watched the silver-haired woman closely and with measured interest. Jorah could read that interest plainly. Lyanna had sworn no oaths to the Targaryens, at least none intentionally…and here was one who had declared herself queen of seven kingdoms she'd never seen, whose family words were "fire and blood" and whose past actions had certainly lived up to that motto. 

Daenerys, who in Qarth, had so fiercely demanded her titles and all those scraps of respect that had been withheld from her in childhood, now demurred. She demanded nothing this time but remained silent, by Jorah's side, allowing Lyanna's slight to pass without acknowledgment. Jorah could not be sure why. Exhaustion? Defeat? 

He spared a glance on Daenerys and found her gaze drifting around the room, taking in the simple, sturdy look of the timbered hall, the thick logs and grey stones, green and brown banners, the silver bear pendant at Lyanna's throat, the restless nature of the maester's fingers on the table’s rough oak planks. He couldn't begin to guess her thoughts. He suddenly wished they were alone and he could ask her.

In any case, he was grateful for her tact. This would be difficult, even without testing the competing pride of bears and dragons. 

Jorah nodded his head to Lyanna respectfully. He had held Lyanna in his arms when she was a squalling newborn, though she wouldn't remember it. They had met briefly, again, in the halls of Winterfell before the last battle but there had been little time for catching up. Besides, Maege made her feelings clear before he fled the Island. He had no doubt that her youngest daughter harbored the same hard-edged sentiments.

_I've been dead to them for years._

"Am I, my lady?" Jorah answered her greeting, finally, his voice even lower and raspier than usual, a side effect of too many hours exposed to damp and brutal weather. He heard Daenerys take a small step closer to him, as he continued, "I have no right to ask…"

"But you will anyway…," Lyanna sighed impatiently. She had more to say but at that moment, the howl of the storm winds battered the ramparts, rattling the reinforced windows and shaking the chains on every gate, as if throttling the castle for entry. Everyone in the Keep shuddered at the bone-chilling sound of its unearthly wail. Every candle and torch wavered in sudden drafts. Lyanna grumbled to her maester, "I told you we wouldn't escape this storm."

"I was hopeful the sea winds would keep it to the east, my lady," Maester Morlan replied, excusing his ever-disappointed optimism for perhaps the third time that day.

"Hope is folly," Lyanna answered flatly, before calling those loitering in the outer hall forward. She gave them a list of instructions—to maintain the fires in the castle, to board up any remaining glass, and to assist Captain Claver in the harbor, if he needed any help battening hatches and securing ships. 

As Lyanna gave orders to her staff and the wind continued to howl and moan, Jorah felt relief, at least, that they'd made it in time. But with that relief, the sheer adrenaline that had been fueling his every move receded. His whole body seemed to know that they were at the finish line and threated to give up if he remained standing for much longer. 

He must have faltered, for he felt Daenerys close the narrow distance between them, her arms slipping around him, lending her slight form as support. That grave concern written all over her face only deepened and he wished he could chase it away despite knowing that, this time, he was the cause of it.

_My dear, sweet girl…_ he thought, for his mind was too tired and hazy to bother reminding him that she wasn't his at all. He accepted her embrace, his hand coming to rest on her shoulder.

Lyanna, now finished with her servants, turned back to Jorah and Daenerys, her intelligent eyes betraying nothing of her thoughts. But her natural scowl hinted at disapproval, as always. She moistened her lips and opened her mouth to pronounce a judgment one way or another.

But Daenerys spoke first. She had not taken her gaze off Jorah and she didn't now. Her eyes remained locked with his as she addressed the mistress of Bear Island, with all the power and force of tone that had brought ancient cities in the East to their knees before her,

"Lady Mormont, your cousin requires a maester's attention. Now."


	14. Meera

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So you were getting a Daenerys chapter next but ever since I wrote the Bran chapter, Meera Reed has been in my head. Don't blame her. Meera's amazing. Blame me. I had to get this one down first, before she vanished into the swampy underbrush forever. As always, thanks for your faves/reviews! Xo

**_Meera_ **

_Several weeks later…_

Every pond surrounding Greywater Watch was frozen solid, from the shallow pools to the deepest holes in the ground. The patchwork of swamps decorating the Neck were all draped in latticed frost. The mire surrounding the crannogs had gone hard as stone. The slouching willows, hollow reeds and floating islands were all locked in ice. 

Meera was accustomed to stepping on unsteady ground. The mire of the swamplands, the way it moved and flowed under her huntress steps, had always been hers to command. She was a Reed. This was her country. But the land had gone cold and fallow, like the silence of a buried tomb. 

_Or the heart of a Three-Eyed Raven._ Meera frowned grimly as she kept her balance, sliding across a sheet of ice to the edge of the brown-spotted swamp. The air was so crisp, like the crunch of autumn foliage or the bite of a green apple. Meera wished she had a green apple. She wished she could hop up into the branches of the nearest swamp-apple tree and pluck a half dozen, all with glossy skin and tart flavor…because that would mean it was late summer again, with all its long days, warm nights and honey-sweet caresses.

She was too young to remember the last winter but this one had left a bad taste in her mouth already.

Winter was an unforgiving season. It was bitter, all wrath and fury. And so greedy in its rage. Its storms were never satisfied. The last one kept Meera and her father locked up in their Tower for weeks. The storm wailed against Greywatch Tower like a bog-chained banshee, with blinding snows and deep freezes that went on and on, until it had turned the whole of Westeros into a frozen wasteland. 

All wrath and fury and hard edges. And when the wrath and fury was spent, it was silence. The kind of silence that whispers hopeless thoughts of loneliness and death.

Meera didn't like the silence at all. All her life, the swamps around her home had hummed, whistled, croaked and buzzed, with the sound of winged insects and slippery amphibians. Gnats, dragonflies, frogs, toads, hummingbirds, crickets—their constant chatter was music to Meera's ears. When she was young, she would occasionally sleep in the trees out here in the bogs and lagoons, lulled to sleep by the swamp's many-voiced folk songs.

Winter hushed up the swamp's voice and left it shivering and forlorn. Meera only hoped all the frogs and toads had found warm ground to sleep in.

She ducked into the grove of birch wood on the other side of the swamp. The trees were frosted over and bare-limbed, their papery bark frozen stiff. Meera let her gloved hands slide around the trunks of the birch and ash. She went to the center of the grove and there she knelt on snow-covered moss. Beneath the moss, she started digging.

Her father, Howland Reed, was dying. He would never admit it to her but he was dying just the same. She was tempted to cry about it in the birch wood but it wouldn’t change anything and her tears were all dried up. That’s why her father kept this news to himself.

He'd seen her grief-worn expression when she returned from Winterfell, her errand finished, Jojen lost, her association with Brandon Stark at its end. The things she'd seen above the Wall would haunt her until the end of her days. And her father would never heap sadness upon his sad daughter. Not if he didn't have to.

"I couldn't save him, Father," she had said as soon as she walked into Greywater Watch, in a small voice colored with a thousand regrets, her eyes pooling in hot tears that she let fall onto her face without wiping them away. She was speaking of Jojen or Bran, Hodor or Summer, or all of them together. 

She couldn't be sure herself.

All she knew was that she felt broken inside. Her mission was complete. She'd done what her father asked her to do. She did what was required, battling magic and dead men and mysticism, watching every last one of her companions fall before her. Jojen was dead. Hodor was dead. Summer and the Children of the Forest. All dead. And Bran? Bran was dead too, replaced by a cold, supernatural presence, far beyond all of them, incapable of human emotion. No fear, no sadness, no love.

Travelling back to Greywater Watch from Winterfell, Meera felt the sting of Bran's cruel words in every mile. 

_The Three-Eyed Raven's words_ , she amended in her head, although it didn't make her feel any better.

The road home seemed long this time. She'd made the trek before, at a hurried, excited pace, but Jojen had been with her. This last time, she’d been entirely alone and she felt it keenly. She'd never felt more alone in her life. When she walked into her father's house, she couldn't stop the tears. Sadness and relief all mixed together in a potent brew. She was so _tired_. She missed Jojen and her mother. And Bran's words wouldn't stop echoing in her head, over and over and over again.

_No, I don't need you._

Seeing her tears, her father embraced her tightly and let her cry at his shoulder. The unconditional love and warmth in her father's embrace only made the tears come faster. These were old tears, pent up from all those months and years above the Wall. Images flashed through her head. The mutineers at Craster's Keep. The scarlet stripe across Jojen's throat. Dead men digging through the ceiling of the Three-Eyed Raven's cave. Hodor's screams, as he followed her frantic, desperate command to the last. 

_Hold the door!_

"Meera, my brave child. You're home now," her father promised with gentleness. He held her for a long time, letting her cry herself dry. When she was finished, she wiped her eyes with her fingers. As he had when she was a child, her father lifted her chin to make sure she was all right. She managed a small, brave smile and nodded wordlessly.

She was home. She was with her family and that was all that mattered now. 

But her father was dying. He had a cough that he couldn't shake. It had lingered through the long autumn and had recently turned hoarse and bloody. That morning, Meera had boiled him a honey-sweetened tea of crushed green leaf that he accepted gladly.

"Do you remember your mother's mint and mushroom soup?" her father asked, as he sipped down the tea. "She always made so much from so little. You're very like her, Meera."

Meera decided that she would make her mother's soup for him. Practical and resourceful as always, she knew where to look for mushrooms, even in the dead of winter. In the birch and ash wood, on that snow-covered bed of wiry moss, she dug deep. She knew these swamps and all their creatures and vegetation like no one else. And the swamp was resilient. It would outlast the winter yet.

There they were. Little, cold-weather mushrooms, hiding under the bed of moss. With a blade from her belt, she cut a fistful. It would make enough for the two of them. It was a frivolous thing and not worth the effort she put into it. But she loved her father and would take on far more to secure a single moment of his happiness. 

For what was life without love?

_Bleak as the long winter_. Meera thought to herself, holding back stupid tears that sprung to her eyes, uninvited. _Cold as a Three-Eyed Raven._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S. *whispers* Hold the door. 
> 
> *cries, dies for the millionth time*
> 
> #stillnotoverit


	15. Daenerys

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've changed the rating on this fic. Not for the current chapter but...well, I've got plans. And better safe than sorry ;)
> 
> Next chapter will be posted soon! Very soon. Like maybe...tomorrow soon? We'll see. In the meantime, sweet dreams my fellow Jorah/Dany shippers. <3

**_Daenerys_ **

Daenerys stood at a tall, frost-painted window in one of the upper bedrooms of Mormont Keep on Bear Island. 

This is where Lyanna Mormont's maidservant had led her that first night, after she'd kept vigil at Jorah's bedside for hours. She had refused to leave him twice, but on the third try, she nodded finally, finding her own eyes betrayed her watch, slighting their duty by shutting heavily, all those days without proper sleep suddenly catching up to her fast.

Maester Morlan had tended the knight's wounds and Jorah slept soundly, his breath steady and strong. As she finally slipped her hands from where they wrapped around his unconscious grasp, she marveled at his strength again. _As strong and stubborn as any bear._ All those miles traveled and all those dangers faced and here he remained. Still among the living. Still with her.

She was glad. She was so very glad.

The bedroom that Lyanna gave Daenerys was sparsely furnished, as was the entire Keep. Daenerys was not surprised to find that the Mormonts favored function over frivolity. There were few trimmings in the room—an oval mirror on the wall, a throw blanket embroidered in green threads. But none of the gold-plated resplendence of Qarth, the decadent glories of ancient Meereen or the gaudy excess of Illyrio Mopatis's estate in Pentos could be found in these reserved halls. 

There was a cedar chest of drawers and a bed covered in quilts and furs. The bedroom faced the turbulent sea, but its view was obscured, boards nailed together and affixed to the sill with a solid crosspiece, as a defense against the glass-shattering violence of gusty winds and raging snow. 

But the fireplace was lit and the bed was soft and warm. After she tumbled into it, Daenerys slept for a day and a half, without dreams, without thought. Not even the storm of a generation could wake her. 

Weeks passed. 

The storm raged and raged, until all its raging wore out. It screamed until its voice was finally used up. One dark night, when no one was watching, it petered out to nothingness. And the next morning, Daenerys woke to the deep quiet of frosted dawn, with cold strips of winter sunlight falling across the stone floor in her bedroom, creeping in through the cracks of the boarded windows. 

Their wounds healed slowly but surely, battlefield grime was washed off, the bites of sword and spear faded in time. The chains on the gates were undone and the boards on the castle windows were taken down to reveal the winter-kissed world that the storm had left behind. 

Daenerys leaned forward and blew softly against the cold glass. With two fingers, she brushed away a circle of frost. All its intricate lines and feather patterns, so delicately drawn, melted easily under her warm touch.

Under her hand, the circle widened until she was free to look out. The landscape was silvery white, from the snow-buried cornerstones of the Mormont Keep down to the glittering harbor, where any flicker of stray sunlight glinted off the glistening patches of sea ice. Little flurries of snow, conjured from the air and from the drifts, skated over the ice sheets.

Except for those snow flurries, all was quiet and still. The ship that had carried them to the Island was locked in ice with all the others, and it was frosted over from bow to stern. Its mast slanted at a sharp, unnatural angle, as the hull was wedged against a rise in the ice field.

The ships were ghostly. The docks appeared cluttered with ice sculptures. Every beam and every piling on the pier was white-washed in frost and ice, feathery sprays frozen in time. The landscape left behind by storm and sea breeze was unearthly and coldly beautiful to behold. The harbor resembled a strange, wild garden…which grew only wooden ships, bathed in ice.

Daenerys gazed out that window for some time, lost in her thoughts, contemplating many things. Absently, she brushed the melting frost on her fingertips on the skirt of her dress. 

The dress was a plain thing, a rust-red color that matched well with all the subdued greys, browns and greens of this House. But the cut was flattering and fit her perfectly. She'd found it in the cedar drawers, with other garments of her size. 

There was a silk, blue nightgown in the bottom drawer that caught her eye when she first went through the chest. It was the same color as the dress she'd worn in Qarth, as the honored guest of the Xaro Xhoan Daxos. When she found it, she had stopped short, her hands playing at the hem of the silky fabric. The vibrant color seemed so out of place with the blacks, browns, greys and dark greens favored by the Island. And yet, the color was found here as naturally as the others, in the winter sky, or a bluebird's wing…or the piercing iris of Jorah's blue eyes.

Kneeling on the floor by the cedar chest, she'd closed her own eyes briefly at the thought. And now, standing at the window, she did so again, chiding herself in vain for the repeated action, wondering if other women spent as much time contemplating the color of a man's eyes, the cadence of his voice, the muscular lift of his… 

Daenerys heard a small knock on the thick planks of her bedroom door. Her heart jumped, thinking it might be the same person her thoughts had drifted to once again. She felt caught in the act and felt her face coloring as she turned, expecting, wishing, hoping? But she relaxed immediately. It was only one of Lyanna’s chambermaids.

She should have guessed. After his recovery, Jorah had slipped so seamlessly back to their former roles, redefining the lines of formality that had been breached during the wild rush of battle and outrunning the storm. He was kind, as always. He was hers to command, of course, his vows to her as strong as ever. But he was distant. He didn't seek her out. He said nothing of the past or words left unspoken. He hadn't called her _Khaleesi_ since they reached the Island. And he hadn't touched her since that first day they landed on these shores. Not once.

They were the Silver Queen and her sworn knight once more. Except she was no longer queen of anything and she'd rather have his touch than his vows. At least she could admit that much…to herself, if no one else.

Once he had recovered, she decided that she would tell him. She promised herself, she'd make him see the change he failed to recognize. Isn't that what she had just promised herself again, for the thousandth time, as she looked out on the frozen harbor? But as days turned into weeks, she still didn't have the nerve. And doubt had begun creeping into her head.

Everything that she once knew as certain had turned to dust. Dragons falling from the sky, dead men coming back to life, the Iron Throne a birthright that wasn’t hers at all. So why not this too… 

What if his feelings had cooled towards her? Just because he loved her once didn't mean he loved her now. She had kept him waiting long enough. She couldn't blame him if he'd moved on. 

In the last few weeks, every time she was tempted go to him, she found herself replaying the same two scenes in her head. When he released her hands on the beach at Dragonstone and again, when he released them on the ship bound for Bear Island. She gave her hands freely and he returned them. Twice. Banished back to her keeping.

_As you banished him. Twice._ The painful memory of her own actions—cold, headstrong girl that she was, plagued her often now.

"Pardon, my lady," the red-headed chambermaid apologized, seeing that she'd startled Daenerys out of deep musings. "Dinner will be served in a few minutes. Lady Lyanna is downstairs already. And Ser Jorah and Captain Claver have just returned from checking the ice of the outer bay."

"Yes," Daenerys nodded. "I'll be down directly."

"Very good, my lady," the girl smiled graciously, with a slight, timid curtesy. She retreated from the doorway quickly, off to other tasks and errands. If her steps had been slower, Daenerys might have called her back. 

There was something in the chambermaid's pleasant manner that reminded Daenerys of Missandei. And oh, how she missed Missandei…and Irri before her. She wished they were both here now, to speak of things that she dared not speak to anyone else. 

_What is it? What troubles you?_ Missandei could always sense her distress. There was only one other soul in the world who could read her as well…but she couldn't very well take this problem to him, could she? 

_I'm in love with Jorah Mormont._ She admitted in her head, for the very first time. She exhaled, not realizing she'd been holding her breath. _But I don't know if he feels the same way anymore._

_He loves you, Daenerys,_ Missandei’s features would break into a bright smile and she would nod with encouragement, no hesitation in her talented voice. _He loves you in as many languages as I could express the feeling._

_It is known._ Irri's smirk rose up in the recesses of her mind and, despite herself, Daenerys nearly laughed at the sweet memory of that simple phrase. 

But she sobered quickly, as all her memories of Irri were tainted by blood. She couldn't hold the image of the Dothraki girl's wide smile for long before it slipped away again, dissolving into fleeting visions of the Red Waste, Rakharo’s head in a bag, dripping blood into the hot sand, Irri laid out, slain in a courtyard in Qarth.

She pushed those memories away. Or Jorah did, as all her memories were so tangled up with him that it circled back naturally. Blue eyes meeting hers as he rushed up the villa stairs. With one glance he read her soul—her grief, her loss, her sorrow, her relief at his return.

_You came back._

If she had it to do over again, she would have jumped into his arms then. Why hadn't she? 

The specters of her two handmaidens left her too easily and their words were too mixed with her own wishes to be trusted. She sighed and pressed her fingers to her closed eyelids, wondering how she’d allowed herself to be so overwhelmed. Is this how Jorah had felt all those years? The agony of uncertainty tied her in knots and she had no idea how to undo them. 

_Jorah's touch might help…_

After another moment's useless contemplation, she finally turned from the window and went down to dinner.


	16. Jorah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 24,000 words later...
> 
> *pours gasoline on slow burn*
> 
> #mwah

**_Jorah_ **

Jorah entered his bedchambers with a frown, running his hand over his unshaven face. Daenerys's reaction at dinner had been unexpected. He thought to make her happy with news that the sea ice didn't extend to the outer bays yet and that she may be able to return to Dragonstone sooner rather than later. Lyanna's dry comments in reply— _I'm sure you'll be pleased to return to your own island_ —edged on "good riddance" but surely, Daenerys didn't think he shared those thoughts? 

Still, Daenerys had pushed back her chair and left the table so suddenly. The sound of wood scraping against stone echoed loudly in the dining hall, leaving behind a deafening silence. She said nothing, she didn't look at him. Jorah watched her go, helplessly. 

At the head of the table, Lyanna took a drink of frost-berry wine. She appeared undisturbed by the woman's behavior. Over her wine goblet, she met her older cousin’s glance neutrally. But the little she-bear's thoughts were plain.

_Targaryens…_

Jorah left the dining hall soon after. But the continued silence that he'd been met with when he knocked on her bedroom door afterwards was piercing. Her displeasure tore at him, as always. 

It was easy to forget, but their history was not an easy one. And he could never shake the memory, shallow as it was buried, of what passed between them in the throne room of the Great Pyramid in Meereen. 

_You will never be alone with her again._ Ser Barristan Selmy had said. False words then, false words now. And yet they came back to him too easily, with cruel taunts, dredging up the same acute feelings of that long, terrible walk up the pyramid's dark, unyielding corridors to face her. The pain of that particular memory, and the sting of the separation that came afterwards, followed him like a shadow. He was convinced that the wound would remain raw for the rest of his life.

But her manner tonight, this silence—this was something different. He had displeased her when he let Lyanna's comment go by without answer. He knew she wanted him to say something. But what? There was something stirring in his heart, something that spoke of a truth he dared not hope for. He'd seen it in her eyes over the last several weeks, he heard it in the way she said his name. But he couldn't believe it, _wouldn't_ believe it, and old habits die hard.

He suppressed the idea admirably, ignoring an insistent voice in his head—his father's again? Or perhaps his mother this time, as the voice was soft, gentle and advising romantic nonsense that he couldn't equate with the gruffness of his father. 

_Go to her_ , the voice begged. _Go and make this right._

He would not. The voice was wrong. She didn't want to see him, she didn't want to hear his voice. He was convinced and didn't allow any thoughts to the contrary. He suppressed the voice and busied himself preparing for bed, stripping off his outer tunic and tossing it to a nearby chair carelessly, almost angrily. But angry at what, he couldn't say. He left the muslin undershirt on, unlaced, open at his neck, as he gripped the back of the chair with both hands. He was at war with himself. The voice would not stay silent but he was strong. So strong. And would not be dissuaded in his decision, as stubborn as a bear.

_You're a fool._ He imagined his mother's voice pronouncing this bluntly before she disappeared, back to the land of ghosts and buried things. 

He _was_ a fool, stubborn and blind and…

He heard the latch click over and he heard the door to his bedroom open. He turned at the sound and found Daenerys standing in his bedroom. Facing him, she leaned back against the door purposefully, closing it behind her.

She was dressed in a sheer blue nightgown that had not been made by Mormont hands. She must have found it in these halls but where? And who did it belong to? Was it one of the many gifts he'd brought to Lynesse—trying to appease her and keep her happy? One that she looked at in disgust and put away in a drawer never to be taken out again? He couldn't be sure. He couldn’t think of Lynesse now. He couldn't bring her face to mind. For the only vision in his head was the one before him—of Daenerys, with her silver-blond hair unbraided and down, loose around her shoulders, dressed in that sheer, blue nightgown. His grip on the chair lessened by a degree, as he met her steady gaze with a bewildered stare.

Daenerys wasn't smiling either. Her expression was shaded in misery and lingering tension. Jorah opened his mouth to ask what she was doing here but she spoke first, in a rush to force the words out while she had the nerve.

"I don't want to go back to Dragonstone," she stated with finality, adding, "I don't want to be Queen of anything."

"But you are a Queen," he answered, his expression breaking on a sad, wry smile. "Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Breaker of Chains…"

She didn't let him finish, saying flatly, "Jon was the rightful king all along."

"Jon is dead, Daenerys," he reminded her gently.

But she shook her head with conviction, imploring him to understand, "If it was mine to take, it's mine to give up. And I don't want it."

Her words surprised him. The tone she said them in unnerved him. He knew she felt the losses of that last battle keenly, but it had been weeks. Their physical wounds had nearly healed and the emotional scars were no worse than the ones they'd accumulated over however many battles against however many foes. She'd always recovered so quickly before, taking up the mission of her life, the restoration of her House, the vengeance of those crimes committed against her family—always, always the same talisman that guided her forward.

She couldn't just give it up. Not after all this time. And what had happened that would make her change her mind?

"What _do_ you want, Daenerys?" he asked, hearing an echo of those same words across time and space, as his lips formed the syllables. The words resonated in his ears, with a weighted meaning he didn’t intend. But she must have heard it too. Her expression flickered on the memory of a long ago night in Qarth, when they argued over the nature of trust. They both felt the change. There was too much similarity between the two moments. The candlelight, the blue color she wore, the charge in the air between them. 

_What do you want? Tell me._

He hadn't told her all back then, though she knew. She must have known. How could she not when his feelings had been so strong? He was her captive from the beginning, whether he wanted to be or not. He had no choice in the matter. He still didn't.

_I'll always love you._

This was no idle promise he'd made her. His fate was sealed a long time ago. For him, love—in every form that was fashioned on earth—was synonymous only with her. But at the word _want_ , falling from his lips in the present and hers in the past, it wasn't only pious love that suddenly sparked between them.

Nor, he realized with sudden, dawning clarity, was it only on his side. 

Daenerys's full lips parted slightly but she couldn't manage an answer. Perhaps she didn't know the answer. Not yet. But that veiled look in her eyes said she'd like to find out. 

Jorah's hands slid from the back of that chair without his knowledge. He hesitated, not believing the words he found written so explicitly across her lust-saturated features. But he watched her violet eyes, shaded darker in the orange glow of firelight, slip from his…as her gaze moved lower, over his lips, throat and further, devouring the sight of him like he was hers alone.

Which, of course, he was.

One of them moved first. Or both. When her eyes snapped back up to his, the hesitation was over. Only want remained. And need. The space between them never stood a chance.

His mouth found hers quickly, hers lips parting on the taste of his kiss. There was pine and salt in that kiss, and the cusp of wintergreen and wine. He drank of her and she drank of him, with the urgency of a caress that should have happened years ago. Her hands slipped up his neck and into his red-blond hair. His arms slid around her smooth curves, his fingers clutching the silky fabric at the small of her back and pressing her closer against him. She melted in his arms, fitting against him with an easy, natural grace that made his blood turn hot.

"Khaleesi, I—," he tried to speak once, as they came up for breath, but the dragon girl in his arms wouldn't let him finish the thought. She didn't want to give him a chance to think, lest he tried to talk them both out of what was happening. She tightened her hold around his neck, climbing against his tall frame, and covered his feeble words with another kiss that plunged deeper, her teeth lightly scraping his bottom lip as she beckoned him into it.

He didn't need the invitation, answering her kiss with one of his own, followed by another and another. She smiled into the barrage of kisses, grinning into his fervent attentions and pressing herself ever closer, as he lifted her from the grey stones of the bedroom floor, her legs wrapping around his hips.

The bed was only a few steps away but he took his time. She didn't appear to mind, her hands sneaking up beneath the muslin of his undershirt, sliding up the bare skin of his torso like flames rushing over a prairie, catching everything it touches on fire. He breathed in sharply as her eager hands found the wound at his ribs, not quite healed. But the sharpness of pain was mixed with a far sharper pleasure that sent shivers running all through his body.

"Oh, Jorah, I'm sor—," hearing his intake of breath, Daenerys broke the kiss and tried to apologize for hurting him. Now it was his turn to silence her, shaking his head silently and drowning her words in the taste of his kisses. She moaned softly, with pleasure, and fell headlong into it. Her arms slid around his neck, useless except to hold on.

Without breaking that kiss, he laid her down on the bed—the softness of skin and fur, the heat of fire and flesh. With insistent hands, she forced him to take off that undershirt, helping him strip it off and throw it to the floor beside the bed. She explored his naked chest with her delicate, teasing fingertips, sending a thrill of wanton desires through the pit of his stomach. His hand slid up the side of her thigh slowly, beneath the silk of that blue nightgown, and he felt her whole body arch slightly in response.

The kisses continued, deeper, sensual, filled with heat and fire. She had seized his mouth as her own and he was only too happy to give it to her. With every touch of her lips, every nip of her teeth, every pass of her tongue, he felt that same shivers of pleasure. With every break, he felt the primal need for more. As did she, apparently, for she kept coming back, never quite satisfied.

His hands tangled in strands of her silver-blond hair, gathered up around the curve of her shoulder. He lifted her off the mattress with a bear's strength, tilting his mouth against hers, as she held on tight, before coming down to rest against the sheets again. 

He might have kissed her in the Red Waste, at Qarth, at Meereen, at Dragonstone. But he didn't.

_Because you were a fool_ , he might have thought again, if thought was given an audience in that bed on that night. But thoughts had no place here. Only senses, flooded with desire.

Daenerys's wandering fingers had moved lower, passing the muscular ridges of his torso with loving caresses, all the way down to the laces of his breeches. 

He felt her grin into his kiss again. And with another moan of pleasure, she pulled the laces loose.


	17. Sansa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter…well, I think I should just admit straight out that I can ship Sansa with pretty much any man in her orbit. Except maybe Joffrey and Ramsay, who were just the _worst_. But yeah, Jonsa shippers – I get it. The aesthetic is too pretty to ignore (like, they paired Jon with a red-head for a reason). And Tyrion/Sansa fans, yes, let's continue to explore this path. But also um, SanSan? Yeah, okay that one just happens naturally, doesn't it? I mean, seriously, you write a chapter with absolutely no intention of setting your story up with a love triangle, and oh look, the Hound being all astonishingly sweet and gentle again…
> 
> Long story short, I added some more Sansa tags.
> 
> We'll be back to the regularly scheduled Jorah/Dany morning after events shortly. Thank you, thank you, thank you for all your comments/kudos on the last chapter! Xo

**_Sansa_ **

Sansa didn't pray anymore. 

Not to the Old Gods, for she wasn't entirely convinced that her brother wouldn't be one of the beings she was praying to. It felt too strange to ask for their abstract mercy and grace when Bran lived and breathed beneath her roof. And besides, if the Old Ones were to favor them it would be through Bran's intercession, not her own.

She didn’t pray to the foreign Fire God whose scarlet-clad priestesses murdered children and proclaimed new saviors as soon as the old ones fell. With Jon and Daenerys both gone, Sansa cynically wondered who the next prince that was promised would be. She would likely have to wait until winter was over to find out as Westeros was currently short on red priests. Thoros had died above the Wall and the Lady Melisandre had met her end here, in these very halls. 

Sansa had shed no tears over the Red Woman when Ser Davos came to her, confessing himself Melisandre's murderer even before the body had been discovered. During the battle, he found her in the Stark catacombs. She was whispering foreign words to the dead, making mischief, as always. Ser Davos strangled her with his one good hand and watched the life's blood drain from her comely face with no pleasure. But it was necessary, for Shireen's sake. The priestess rapidly aged before his eyes, he said, all that false beauty coming loose in death. 

When they searched the catacombs, they found only dust. 

No, Sansa didn't pray. Not even to the Seven, who had proved themselves no better than pawns in the game of thrones, and no better than stone statues in the game between the living and the dead. Her mother had prayed to them daily. Catelyn had Ned build her a sept at Winterfell, though it was common knowledge that the Seven never traveled so far north. They never answered Catelyn Stark. They never answered Sansa. And Cersei had blown up the Sept of Baelor without consequence. Either they were too weak to protest, or they never lived at all.

Still, Sansa found she liked the quiet of her mother's sept and went there often. The cares of the castle were many. Men twice her age were looking to her for direction on a daily basis. She had made certain their provisions would carry them through and that their storehouses were full before the storms came, but who was she to know what was enough? And who was she to lead them through the long winter?

_You are Sansa Stark, Lady of Winterfell._ She reminded herself, but in a voice that had no authority, and too much of Petyr Baelish's cunning whisperings in it. Sometimes, she wondered if he was really gone at all, despite having watched him die. His ghost haunted her life with lingering whispers and old schemes that she couldn't seem to shake out. She wouldn't be surprised to glance over and find him hovering in the doorway, in his dark brown mantle, neck closed up by his mockingbird pin.

It would be like Littlefinger to find a way to crawl back from the pit of death and seek her out again, waiting patiently for her to finish her prayers before stirring her up into more chaos, adding rungs to his accursed ladder. 

Except Sansa didn't pray anymore. And Littlefinger couldn't play his games anymore. Not unless she played them for him. 

She sighed as she rose from the candle-lit alcove where she had knelt, before a small, bronze image of the Maiden and turned to leave the sept. It was late and she was tired and she didn't want to let her thoughts wander back to Petyr Baelish. She had spent enough time with that man, before and after his death. She'd told him once that Ramsey Bolton had left his mark on her for good. But if she was being honest, Ramsey's scars were fading. Just as Joffrey's had faded before him.

It was Littlefinger's influence that lingered. It was Littlefinger's voice that haunted her thoughts. And how could she be Sansa Stark, Lady of Winterfell, with a mockingbird's false voice in her head?

The stone arches which formed the sept's entrance were lit with flickering torches but there were shadows everywhere. As Sansa rounded the corner, eyes downcast and wringing her hands in deep thought, she started suddenly as she nearly ran into the massive figure entering under the archway.

She looked up instantly to find Sandor Clegane staring back. There was ice in his beard and his cheeks were wind-burned, as he must have just come inside from the snow drifts. He carried a large, heavy bundle on his shoulder, wrapped in deerskin. It was the size of a grown man.

"Ser?" Sansa managed, catching her breath. 

"I didn't mean to frighten you, little bird," the Hound said with his customary growl. His words carried more weight than perhaps he meant. There was a time when his mere presence frightened her. Back when she still referred to him as the Hound in her head and meant it in every way. She hadn't forgotten the way she had once recoiled from him, his burned features, his crass manner, his sharp words—and neither had he. He added, as if to remind her, "And I'm no ser."

"I know," Sansa answered, softening her voice, knowing how he felt about the false title. "And you didn't. Frighten me, I mean. You haven't frightened me in a long time. I just—I didn't expect anyone, that's all."

Sandor didn't believe her. More than any other man alive, he knew what he was. And he knew what Sansa was. The lady and the cur—the old songs and stories never mention that particular tale, which was probably for the best. If Sandor Clegane ever guessed that Sansa Stark occasionally had the fleeting impulse to read such a story, well, who knows how it might play out.

But for now, she was more curious about the bundle that Sandor carried than anything else. Her eyes betrayed her interest and flickered to the burdensome weight on his shoulder. Again, she recognized that the bundle was the size of a man. And Sandor had been outside the gates of Winterfell. When she met his gaze, Sandor gave her a long look that spoke volumes.

_Jon…_

"Set him down here," Sansa instructed, leading Sandor back into the sept, near the altar. She blinked back a few errant tears, weeks-old grief suddenly renewed and briefly turned away as Sandor laid the body on the altar of the Warrior, which was appropriate, in its way. The Hound pulled back the deerskin coverings gently and laid the body out with more reverence than one would expect from a dog.

Sansa was worried the fall might have smashed him beyond recognition. She couldn't bear it if his familiar features were twisted and grotesque. Part of her didn't want to look. But part of her _had_ to see him. She'd have no peace until she looked on his face one last time. That's why she sent Tyrion out in the snow to find him. That's why Sandor went out into the snow to bring him back.

When he was finished laying Jon out, Sandor held out his hand, "Come, little bird. He won't frighten you either."

Sansa turned back slowly, not glancing at Jon's body. Not yet. After a moment's hesitation, she took Sandor's offered hand and let him draw her near the altar. The rustling sound of her skirt as she took those two steps was the only noise in the sept. Her breath caught in her throat as she suppressed the memory of black grief, still rough-hewn, of standing on the Winterfell battlements and watching her brother ( _he wasn't your brother, Sansa_ ) fall from the sky.

She finally looked down at the man lying on the altar. 

"Oh, Jon…," she murmured, her voice breaking and colored with affection.

The snow had cushioned his fall. The cold had preserved his body. He was whole. His face remained unmarked, except for old battle scars. His eyes, thanks to Sandor, were closed on the world of the living. If not for the frosty, grey pallor of his skin, he might have been sleeping.

Sansa was tempted to try and shake him awake.

She would remember forever, riding through the gates of Castle Black, broken, shattered and so alone. She would remember catching sight of a young man on the ramparts, his coal black hair and that astonished look breaking over his usually brooding features. She would remember feeling his arms enclose around her and her head buried in his shoulder. It was only then that she knew everything would be all right, despite the horrors she'd faced for years as the plaything of Joffrey Baratheon and Ramsay Bolton. It was only then that she could stop running and pretending and breathe free air for the first time since she was a child.

"We'll bury him in the crypt, with Father and Robb, near Aunt Lyanna…his mother," Sansa said softly, her hand carefully slipping out of Sandor's, to reach out and push a lock of Jon's hair away from his face. Her fingers lingered against his ashen brow. She insisted, "He'll be with his family."

Sandor just nodded. He stood beside her solemnly, unspeaking, guarding the little bird as she slowly leaned over the dead man and pressed a parting kiss to his forehead.


	18. Daenerys

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I seriously have no control over these two anymore. Originally, I thought I'd have them talk out their feelings in this chapter but just look what happened instead…
> 
> Thanks for reading! Your faves/comments always make me smile :)

**_Daenerys_ **

In winter, dawn came late to Bear Island. The northern reaches hid from the sun in dark and cold corners, shivering and crouching in frost and snow. When the sun appeared, it stayed in the southern horizon, not adventurous enough to travel further north, where its pale rays might freeze solid, lashing it to the earth with glass-like bonds. But even timid, light is resilient and bleeds through the darkness, ripping tears in the black fabric of night. 

It was still hours before sunrise, but a shade of indigo light was filtering in through the upper windows of Jorah's bed chamber. The beeswax candles had burned down to stubs in the night and the fire, while still lit, cast only a dull glow on a crescent portion of the stone floor before it. The light from the earliest hours was faint…but it was enough. 

It was enough for Daenerys, as she lay against Jorah, to softly trace the marks she found on his chest with her fingertips. She had woken only a few minutes before. Jorah was still sleeping soundly, his breathing pattern following an easy rise and fall. They had fallen asleep entangled, her legs hooked around his, his arm looped around her waist, the top of her head tucked beneath his jawline, nestled against his shoulder.

She traced his old scars with care. She didn't want to wake him. Their coupling had lasted into the deepest pockets of night. Once begun, they couldn't stop, both giving in to every impulse of fevered desire, again and again. Only sweet exhaustion drove them finally to sleep, and Daenerys found herself drifting into dreams on the contented sigh of Jorah's soft endearments whispered quietly at her ear. 

Upon waking, the afterglow of passion still simmered within her and she bit her lip gingerly, suppressing a sudden curve of smile at what had passed between her and her bear knight in the darkest hours. His chest remained bare except for where waves of her silver blond hair spilled over him. Those same scars that had captured her interest in that cabin in the charred ruins of the Wolfswood were still written on his skin. She had held her hands back before but this time, he was hers to explore. All hers.

The idea sent her pulse racing. She found her fingers were now acting of their own accord, tracing letters on his skin, spelling out the words of love she hadn't yet said aloud. Afterwards, she laid her palm flush against him, closing her eyes briefly, restful, listening to Jorah's steady heartbeat.

She must have fallen back asleep, for when she opened her eyes again, the light in the room had grown a shade or two lighter. Still not yet dawn, but ever closer. She almost wished it would delay its coming, as she was content to linger in this particular night for a while longer. 

Daenerys felt Jorah's body shift slightly beneath her. She lifted her gaze and found him awake, looking down at her with a tender grin that acknowledged a hint of mischief. She answered with her own smile, one that spoke of playfulness and shared secrets.

"Good morning," he rasped quietly. His voice was well suited to the hush of those hours before dawn. The arm that he'd looped around her in the night wandered, his hand moving up and down her soft curves languidly. She turned into the caress, shifting closer until she was nearly sprawled over him. 

"Good morning," she whispered back, wondering how those two little words had taken on such grander ambitions. For as she said the last syllable, she found herself biting her bottom lip again, vainly trying to suppress that transparent smile that refused to abandon her features. Jorah laughed quietly at her futile efforts. Daenerys loved the uncommon sound of his laughter and her smile only deepened as the quiet laugh rumbled through his chest. 

They should talk, she knew. There was much to say. Much to untangle and discuss, about the past, about the future…

But she was already kissing him again, and he was kissing her back. Not the insatiable kisses of the night before, but slower, more careful kisses, more appropriate to the early hour. She played at the corner of his mouth, the stubbled whiskers of his beard tickling her lips pleasantly. He brought her back from the edges by teasing her tongue forward, until they both fell into the kiss once again.

He gathered her up and she found she fit snugly against him, the contours of her body perfectly shaped to fit with his. She liked to feel him near…though how inadequate a sentiment that was, when compared to the feelings swirling and sparking throughout her body and soul. 

Jorah had _always_ been there, she knew, by her side. And she had never wanted it any other way. Not from the moment she met him. From the beginning, she needed him close and never felt at ease unless she knew he was there, at the door, in the room, watching over her, guarding against the entropic whims of a capricious world. 

She just hadn't known why. 

She knew others had thought her cruel and selfish. They thought she took advantage of Jorah's obvious devotion, without giving him much in return. But it wasn't that. She would swear it before all the gods and mean it too. The distraction of war and conquest had made it impossible for her to confront her own feelings with any clarity. All she knew was that she wanted Jorah near. She remembered that well enough. His absence, above all the others, had filled her with such hollow emptiness and dread. 

She hadn't known, not until that terrible, terrible moment in the Pyramid at Meereen when she snatched her hand away from his and then watched him walk away…perhaps forever. The anger of a dragon kindled so quickly, burning so fast and hot. But it cooled quickly too, in an icy blast of winter-frost, and she remembers the dread-worn feeling that rippled through her breast as he left, as if she'd cut out half of her heart and thrown it at his feet. 

But she had to be strong. She had to be a Queen.

_Queen of the ashes and a doomed country of dead men…_

She supposed it was just as well. If she had reconciled her own feelings sooner, if she had dared let herself fall for her sweet bear sooner, would her dragons have been born? Would Slaver's Bay have been liberated? Would the Night King have been defeated? 

_No, I would have run away with you to the edge of the world. Everything else be damned._

Later, she would wonder what might have happened to them if she had. She would imagine living with him in a small cottage on a sapphire sea, with lemon trees sprouting up in lush gardens surrounding a house with a red door. Would the snows, when they finally came, have been able to reach so far? 

Maybe. She didn't know and, presently, she didn't care. Even with all the past mistakes and missed chances, she was currently in his arms. And as it was, there was no other place in the world she'd rather be. 

Jorah broke their kiss for a moment, those blue eyes searching hers with unspoken thoughts of his own. The way he looked at her made her cheeks bloom with color and her body go weak with anticipation. He _adored_ her. It was written all over his rugged features. He reached up his free hand and traced the side of her face gently, brushing against her cheek bone, cupping her chin, his thumb running over her swollen lips softly, before being replaced with his own lips once again. 

There was something in his kiss that excited her beyond rational thought. Sure, some part of her could still recall that this was Jorah Mormont. _Her most trusted advisor, her most valued general, her dearest friend._ He knew her better than anyone else in the world. And she knew him the same. They could trade ten thousand shared memories. But somehow, in this bed, she was discovering him for the first time. 

And _gods_ , she liked what she found.

Her feeble efforts to repress her present desires were quickly overruled. Her pulse quickened and the inside of her thighs went as damp as hours ago. He felt the unspoken need, as he moved down her throat with a line of kisses, coming to rest near the jumping vein at her collar bone. She couldn't manage a word, but they were speaking through senses and he answered her silent request with pleasure. 

With that same bear strength that always thrilled her, he shifted them again, changing their positions smoothly. She had her arms wrapped around his neck, burying her head against his shoulder, as she knew she might call out his name before they were finished and certainly didn't want to be responsible for breaking the austere dignity of House Mormont. 

Not at such an early hour.

Jorah didn’t keep her waiting long. The frenzied passion of last night gave way to a deeper, after-burn ardor that had Daenerys grasping at coherence blindly, her body moving of its own accord, rhythmic and ravished, filled with the same pulsing energy that might fuse two stars together. Where he began and she ended, she couldn't say. She knew nothing but the scent and sensation of her lover and she succumbed to it, most willingly.

In the meantime, violet dawn finally crept over the horizon, signaling the beginning of a new day.


	19. Jorah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a warning - there may be a slight delay in updates coming up. Real life and all that. I'm actually really surprised that I've managed to hit the once-a-week updates so far…but man, this story pretty much writes itself. Because, again, (and I may have mentioned this once or twice before) the Jorah/Daenerys connection is one of those most natural, complex, layered and dynamic relationships in the whole Game of Thrones fandom. So. There. :) 
> 
> As always, thanks for being amazing readers! Here, have another Jorah chapter. #mwah

**_Jorah_ **

He was dressed. Or half-dressed anyway. He was out of bed, at least, which was more than he could say for Daenerys. She lingered there, propped up against the down pillows, kneeling on the mattress, with her legs folded up under her and the sheet wrapped around her, pinned under her arms as a sort of sheath. It wasn't modesty that compelled her to keep the sheet against her, but the frigid, drafty air in the Keep. No matter how much heat they had conjured in that bed, it was still winter on Bear Island and the castle held a chill like an icebox.

Daenerys smirked as she watched him dress, her mood still playful, her violet eyes sparking with something much like contentment. He hadn't seen her this way in a long, long time…if ever. The dark shadows that cluttered up her soul appeared diminished, the ghosts of the past banished away for the present. The weary strains of war, loss and grief weren't hovering over her features as they so often did, restless and ever biting, like buzzing gnats in a green meadow.

Could those gnats be shaken off so easily? Jorah's head told him no, but his heart cared little for any dour, Mormont wisdom this morning. His heart was currently too occupied with Targaryen beauty to care for much else. 

Her smirk widened as she caught him staring back.

"You study me, _Ser_ ," she accused him, teasing. "Perhaps you wish to come back to bed, after all?"

"Daenerys…," he half-groaned, ignoring the renewed waves of yearning that she could stir with just a glance or a single word. He told her once already. If one of them wasn't strong enough to resist the other, they might never leave this room again. 

_Would that be so terrible?_ She cocked her head slightly, appearing to read his thoughts. He shook his head stubbornly, even as he found himself taking a step towards her, leaning across the bed and granting her another kiss, this one as delicate and light as white feathers. 

He pulled back far too soon for her liking. His chin slid away from her fingers too easily so she pouted, though without much success. The pout wouldn't stay in place, too quickly swallowed up by the same irrepressible smirk as before. Still, the dragon girl's smirk charmed Jorah more than the pout and he had to focus every ounce of volition he still had on finding his outer tunic and pulling it over his head. 

"The stubbornness of bears…," Daenerys mused as she settled back against the headboard, sighing through her disappointment. But he recognized the soft tease in her sweet voice. If nothing else, she was enjoying his struggle. Enjoying it even more, as she knew she was the cause of it.

"The unquenchable passion of dragons…," he countered, mumbling the words as he attempted to lace up the quilted black fabric on the arms of his tunic. His fingers were clumsy after a night with little sleep.

"Come," Daenerys said, drawing him back to the side of the bed. She scooted closer to the edge, reaching up and pulling him down to sit beside her, where she helped him with the laces. Now it was his turn to watch her, dressed only in her white sheet, silver-blond head bent over the arms of the black tunic, her lovely fingers playing at the threads with care. 

He had always loved her hands, her delicate fingers, how they were so often drawn up to his face, how they fit so well in his own. The first hour they met, her hands had cautiously reached out to accept the gift he offered her. 

_Are you…from my country?_ That voice—so small, so unsure, so hopeful. Those hands—one laid so gently atop the cracked leather binding, the other playing at the edges of old, fraying pages of Oldtown paper. He'd been enchanted by her hands. Enchanted by _her_. Before that day, he'd known her only as the Targaryen girl, the Mad King's youngest child, the exiled princess, a footnote at the edge of the world.

_A footnote…_ How could he know then that his life had been irrevocably changed, at the very moment her hands took those dusty books from his? _You are my entire story, princess._

Unable to help himself, he took her hands now and brought the backs of her knuckles up to his lips, where he pressed a kiss against them.

The teasing glint in her gaze receded, flooded now by sudden tenderness. Their hands tangled together in his lap for a long moment, before she reached up to the side of his face, cupping his cheek with the curve of her thumb, while she leaned up and pressed a kiss at his temple. He closed his eyes briefly at her gentle kiss, squeezing the soft part of her palm on the hand that remained with his own.

"When I think of the time I wasted…," she began softly, her voice little more than a whisper, paper-thin and rueful. She caressed his cheek once more before returning her wandering hand to the others. Her gaze dropped on the words and he spotted a slight sheen of tears on her dark lashes. He shook his head before she could finish, not allowing any regrets to be entertained on this morning.

"None of that," he whispered back, his voice husky with emotion and only stern in its firm gentleness. Now one of his hands drifted up to her face, where he tipped up her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. "Not one moment I've spent with you has been wasted. Not one. You are _everything_ to me, do you understand? I never expected this. But I wouldn't change anything because it led us here, to this moment. And in this moment—are you happy, Daenerys?"

"I'm _very_ happy," she smiled back, her pearly teeth breaking through another grin that spoke of the ardent feelings those flimsy words couldn't express. 

And oh, she was beautiful when she smiled. But she was beautiful all the time. He half-chuckled, half-groaned because he knew himself well enough to know that she'd caught him in her lusty web once again. All that wasted time dressing when the clothes would just come right off again. So familiar now, her mouth found his with little effort.

Or would have, if not for a rapping knock on Jorah's bedchamber door. Their lips were so close, their breath intermingling, but they broke apart at the sudden harshness of sound, startled out of a false haze that had been lingering in the room for hours, assuring them that they were the only two beings on earth.

"Yes?" Jorah called out without rising from the bed. He had no interest in opening the door until he knew what was requested. The present company was sufficient. Three would be a crowd. Daenerys seemed to agree, as she inched closer, draping herself at his shoulder, raising her lips to tease the soft skin at his ear lobe with secret whispers, tempting him to ignore the summons completely. 

"My lord," one of the servants greeted through the closed door, his voice muffled and apologetic. "Lady Lyanna requests your presence this morning. My lady has been waiting for you to come downstairs for some time."

"Has she?" Jorah answered with a question, though he wasn't surprised. He vaguely remembered Lyanna saying she wanted a word with him last night at dinner. But it was after Daenerys had left the dining hall and, at the time, he was distracted and may not have answered to her satisfaction. He may have even ignored his fierce little cousin, though it wasn't his intention. Everything from the day before seemed a blur.

It felt as if an age had passed between then and now. A wonderful, blissful age…

"Tell Lady Lyanna that I will join her in a quarter hour," Jorah replied. At his side, Daenerys frowned at him immediately and opened her mouth to protest, but he gently pressed a finger against her lips, silencing her until the servant's footsteps retreated from the bedroom door.

"You will leave me now?" Daenerys asked him, arching her eyebrows slightly and dropping the sheet a little lower, almost daring him to try.

"I'll leave you in a quarter hour," he confirmed, but slid his arm around her waist, tightening his grip on the dragon girl, making sure she knew he wouldn't abandon his claims on her any time soon. She made no protest, grinning wildly. As he pressed another kiss against the curve of her neck, he added, "But not a moment before."

She grasped the front of his black tunic tightly, with both hands twisted in fabric, and pulled him towards her. They tumbled backwards onto the mattress, laughing.


	20. Lyanna

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In real life, I have two moods. The first is all sunshine and lollipops, oh my god, I love everything and the world is totally amazing *heart eyes*. My other mood should just be called "Lyanna Mormont" and it's…less enthusiastic. Basically Lyanna's vibe of (in Smashing Teacup's ever-insightful words), "Everyone is THE WORST," speaks to me. Because, um, sometimes they are. Except you guys, who are the best <3 
> 
> But anyway, the little she-bear is my soul sister. Nobody glares like a Mormont. :) 
> 
> I've got plans for some Lyanna/Daenerys scenes (showdowns?) later on. But first up, Lyanna has a talk with Jorah. #BearsInTheHouse #IHeartMormonts
> 
> As always, thanks for your faves/comments!

**_Lyanna_**

Lyanna was conflicted, though she'd never admit it. She had waited weeks to have this conversation. When her cousin and Daenerys Targaryen first arrived on the Island, Jorah had been suffering from grave injuries. The Night King's storm began raging within an hour of their landing and continued for a fortnight. Lyanna had no interest in petty discussions until both of those matters had resolved themselves, either in life or death, whichever inevitable conclusion they were all destined for.

But the storm receded and Jorah recovered, and life won out in both cases. Still, she waited. Still, she made no decision.

And yet, there was a decision to be made. It was one thing to give shelter to wounded and weather-beaten exiles during unnatural storms called into being by dead men. It was another to grant them indefinite asylum on her shores and in her household.

_Daenerys Targaryen has no place among us_ , she thought to herself, again, critically. _She should return to her own island…the sooner the better._

She had said as much at dinner the night before, though not in so many words. The insinuation was plain, however, and Daenerys seemed to recoil from the idea. She'd left the table so abruptly, leaving a tense silence in her wake. Jorah, in particular, could not hide his surprise. Dismay and bewilderment colored his features. He'd been off the Island for far too long, amongst people who were too expressive for their own good. 

This was not the Mormont way. Lyanna, by comparison, was able to keep her feelings to herself easily and push aside any musings of why Daenerys Stormborn would want to stay on Bear Island.

She was a Targaryen. And who could explain the whims of a dragon? If Lyanna had been forced into analyzing the woman's behavior, she might have guessed that it was the woman's pride that was offended. Daenerys wasn't used to being told what to do. She gave orders, she didn't follow them. Especially not from a Northern girl not even half her age.

But thinking on it again now, as she sat waiting for Jorah to _finally_ come down, lips pursed thoughtfully and fingers drumming against the scrolled arm of her pine chair lightly, Lyanna considered a different explanation. 

She was fourteen years old. Well, nearly. And she wasn't stupid.

But what went on between her cousin and his dragon queen was none of her business. She'd rather not know, to be honest. She had a low enough opinion of both of them already. And if both of them had fallen under some sentimental spell of _love_ or something like it…Lyanna rolled her eyes to herself and let out a small sigh.

"Do you wish me to summon Ser Jorah again, my lady?" Maester Morlan asked. He was hovering, as always. He misinterpreted her sigh as impatience.

"No," Lyanna answered. "If he said he was coming, he'll come. And when he comes, I want you to leave us."

She was certain he would come. Whatever else Jorah was, he was still a Mormont. And the Mormonts never played at idle words like the southerners. That's why she wanted to speak with him. Alone. They were the last two Mormonts alive, other than distant cousins, descended from great-grandfathers and grandmothers on the ancient family tree—good fighters, solid men and women all, but with blood diluted to the point of wondering how much bear was actually left. 

Therein was her conflict, though she wouldn't breathe a word of it to anyone. 

Least of all her maester, who was so habitually unpresentable that she occasionally wondered how they ever allowed him to leave the Citadel. She watched as Maester Morlan dragged out the iron poker to stir up the fire in the hall. He stirred too zealously, and was suddenly hacking and coughing on the small cloud of smoke that rose from the ash bed. With his back turned towards his mistress, he failed to notice Lyanna give another small roll of her eyes and bring her fidgeting hand to rest beneath her chin, to stop herself from shaking her head at his general ineptitude. 

_Gods, how disappointing…_

But here was her dilemma—she was righteously furious that Jorah had dared return to Bear Island after fleeing in such disgrace. But part of her, the part that spent the last however many years receiving raven after raven heralding the death of her mother, her sisters, her uncle—the part that fought off the Bolton bastard and hoards of dead men and outran a storm that froze the sea in a single night—that part of her was glad that Jorah had come home. Too glad. Her ice-cold heart was nearly warmed by the notion that she wasn't the only Mormont left in the world. 

He was a disgrace. But he was family. And she had no idea how to reconcile those feelings.

Feelings were not something that Lyanna spent much time considering. They were a nuisance and she had no time for their nonsense. She had decided she would ask him the question she needed answered and she would ask it plainly. She intended to ask it the night before. But perhaps her guests had been too busy untangling feelings of their own…

After waiting another few minutes, Jorah finally arrived, dressed in black and brown, tunic embroidered with silver bears across the chest, looking every inch the lord and master of his father's hall. He greeted Lyanna almost warmly and gave a friendly nod to the maester as he entered, which the old man answered in kind. 

At a dismissive flick of Lyanna's hand, the maester retreated to the inner chambers. And as soon as Maester Morlan pulled the oak doors closed behind him, leaving Jorah and Lyanna to themselves, she said, in her blunt way,

"Do you intend to reclaim your title as Lord of Bear Island?"

Jorah must have been expecting the question. His expression barely altered, pausing on the idea for only a beat, "No, I do not."

"I can't believe that." Lyanna pulled her hand out from under her chin, shaking her head with a glowering frown that rivalled any of her cousin's.

But Jorah answered her glower with an uncommon half-smile, non-threatening, nearly paternal. He was in good spirits. _Too good_ , thought Lyanna, considering they were in the middle of the worst winter of their lives. She waited for him to explain himself.

"The Island already has a firm hand guiding it. You are blood of the Old Bear, Lyanna," Jorah replied, with honey in his raspy voice. He'd spent _far_ too much time away from the Island if he thought she'd accept useless flattery. Still, he seemed sincere, as he noted her skeptical countenance and continued, "You know your own strength. You don't need me to sing your praises. The men follow you without question. And I've heard the stories of how you rallied the entire north to Jon Snow's side with a few choice words to Glover and Manderly."

"They refused the call," Lyanna muttered under her breath, automatically.

He nodded, "You are Maege's trueborn daughter. You are Jeor's niece. You are the she-bear of House Mormont…"

"I know who I am," Lyanna snapped at him. He was right. She didn't need his praise or his approval. She was uncomfortable with his calm, forthright manner. He spoke like a lord even when he wasn't trying. Some men are born to lead their people and bring glory and honor to their houses. They have a natural bearing and wisdom that cannot be learned. Jorah had been one of those men. 

Lyanna was tempted to believe he might be still, despite her deeply ingrained sense of untainted honor and mistrust of southern ideas of redemption. 

For even in his darkest hour, he had the grace to leave the family sword behind. Maege had travelled to the Wall to return it to Jeor's keeping. Lyanna was only a child at the time, held in her mother's arms, then her uncle's, passed between them as a bear cub, as they stood in the Lord Commander's chambers at Castle Black, speaking gravely.

_He didn't have to go so far away. He might have come here. He could have taken the black._ Her uncle shook his grey head, world-weary with the news.

_And face you? I think he'd prefer to give his head to Lord Stark himself, served on a platter._ Her mother answered, with a hint of approval. Her nephew feared his father's wrath more than his liege lord's justice. As it should be.

Jeor had nodded at his sister's words. But he also said, in his deep, ragged-coarse voice,

_I'll never see him again, Maege. My only son. My only child. I'll never see him again._ Jeor Mormont sighed and said no more, just tightened his grip on his little niece, Lyanna, pressing a rare kiss to the top of her black-haired head.

Jorah allowed Lyanna time to consider these thoughts. He waited on her, with no expectations and no attempts to influence her one way or another. It was in her cousin's silence that Lyanna found herself convinced of his prior words and swayed to indulge her own foolish ideas of family and…yes, sentimental nonsense.

She hated herself for it, dismayed by her own show of weakness. She could explain it away well enough. It was the dead of winter. They were short on men and would need extra hands in the coming months, and perhaps years, for hunting and felling trees, as the deep freezes showed no signs of loosening their grip. 

But she knew then, deep in her heart, she never would have been able to send him away. In her cousin's face, she saw her mother, her uncle and her sisters. He was a Mormont. 

_The most disgraceful Mormont in a hundred years…_

It didn't matter and she knew it.

To Jorah, she said only, "Welcome home."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S. Off topic, but any Brienne/Jaime fans reading this? Because oh, have I got something for you next chapter... ;)
> 
> #staytuned


	21. Tyrion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in posting this chapter! Crazy busy summer weekends have started earlier than normal this year. But no worries, I'm still very much invested in this fic. Love playing in this universe. Especially love moments like this chapter…where I'm able to shamelessly indulge in some extra fun wish fulfillment shipping. Ahem, Jaime/Brienne people, this is for you ;) 
> 
> Back to our regularly scheduled Jorah/Dany loveliness next time.
> 
> As always, thanks for your faves/comments!

**_Tyrion_ **

The wine ran out _far_ too soon. Two months and Tyrion had drained it all—every last bottle in the woefully understocked Winterfell cellars. Apparently, while Sansa was busy gathering oats and wheat and whatever else, she neglected to import a few more casks of aged vintages to shore up her ancestral home's shocking lack of good, grape-based alcohol. 

When he brought the shortage to her attention, she seemed undisturbed. But he should have guessed that. Northerners had such backwards views on what constituted a necessity.

Bronn had laughed when he first saw the state of the dusty, nearly-barren wine cellar. 

"Well, that's not going to last, is it?" he mused, in that smugly-cynical and far-too-jovial tone of his that failed to give the misfortune the gravity it deserved.

And that facetious tone was _exactly_ why Bronn wasn't allowed to share in the last bottle. He didn't respect the sanctity of a man's relationship with his wine…so he wasn't allowed to toast the bittersweet end of that holy relationship.

"Are you serious?" he asked Tyrion, when the half-man told him to fuck off and take his glass elsewhere. They were sitting in a set of Winterfell rooms that Tyrion had claimed as his own, with a sturdy table between them, cluttered with wine bottles and books, a red pouch spilling a little Lannister gold and a pair of dice. Add an open-air veranda, a sweet summer breeze or some golden sunlight filtering in through gauze curtains and they might have been back in King's Landing. 

Once the wine ran out, that illusion would be much harder to keep intact. 

"As serious as when I told my father not to say the word 'whore' again." Tyrion answered flatly, popping the cork on a Dornish red that represented the end of all his happy endings. Bronn laughed again, completely ignoring the threat in Tyrion's deadly serious words.

But, given the chance, Bronn would have laughed at the Night King so Tyrion didn't take any offense, drunk though he was. The sellsword was a brazen cunt. What else was new? That's why they got along so well. If forced into it, he might even say that Bronn was the only brother he had left now. But he still wasn't sharing that last bottle. Not for brotherly love. Not for shared misery. Not for an Iron Throne. Not for all his father's fucking gold mines.

Not for anything.

He poured himself a half-goblet and held it captive in his two hands, while keeping the bottle safe and far from Bronn's reach, nestled in the crook of his arm. He felt his mouth turn into a smirk, but it was sinister and dark, and said he was about to indulge in his moodier thoughts. Bronn read it clearly. The dwarf wanted some time to brood. Alone.

"I guess you'll have to drink alone then," the sellsword mentioned, turning his silver goblet upside down on the table. He rose from his seat, tilting his head with that sly sense of amusement at everyone and everything in the _goddamn_ world. A cheerful cynic was a rare and uncommon breed. Tyrion had all of Bronn's cynicism with none of the cheer.

_Lucky bastard…_

"Cheers, Bronn," Tyrion allowed. But again, he wasn't changing his mind about the wine. He raised his glass only as a peace offering. Bronn nodded to his friend, winking once, and took his leave, giving the dwarf over to the company of his darker thoughts.

Tyrion sighed in the silence left behind. He looked around the room. The illusion he conjured for himself, by decking the room out in the brighter colors of his house, silks, wine, games and everything Sansa and her dour, fur-wearing household would call extravagant, faded a little each time the frost winds blew against the cold, grey stones. 

It faded even more each time his mind wandered to thoughts of Cersei and his father. Pretty Myrcella and sweet Tommen. Even Joffrey. Scratch that. Never Joffrey. But certainly Jaime. Mostly Jaime. And the others by turns. All their golden hair and lion-like smiles.

_Gold will be their shrouds._

The fact that he was the last Lannister alive weighed heavily on his soul. It shouldn't. He had betrayed his house, sworn them off, pledged his allegiance to foreign monarchs and northern rebels. But he didn't cheer with the rest when Cersei died and he hadn't stopped grieving since he'd been told Jaime had fallen. 

Without a sister to hate or a brother to love, he felt adrift. Without a father to disappoint, he wasn't sure what his role in life would be. And added to that was the loss of his home and his position and the endlessness of winter…oh, winter was not his season. 

For one thing, grapes didn't grow in winter.

"Lord Tyrion?" a woman's voice stirred him out of these endless, utterly bleak contemplations. 

He opened his eyes, not realizing they'd been closed, and found himself looking up at a tall woman with straw-blond hair and sapphire eyes. Brienne of Tarth. The same thought always rushed into his head every time he saw her. _Gods, she's tall for a woman._ This was followed by another thought, which suddenly nibbled at his grey matter.

_Lady Brienne, do you miss my brother as much as me?_

The answer was an easy one so Tyrion didn't bother asking it aloud. 

She had entered the room and closed the door behind her. She must have moved quietly, as he didn't hear a thing. Or perhaps the wine had deadened his senses a little too well. How drunk was he? He glanced down at the wine goblet. It was still half full. He hadn't dared take a sip yet, needing to make this bottle last for as long as possible.

Still, there were three other wine bottles on his table. All empty, their aroma and taste still buzzing around in his fuzzy head.

It took a moment longer for him to recognize that he still needed to respond to Brienne. He meant to say something flippant, some teasing remark, some cynical musings…but then he caught sight of the woman's white-washed face.

She was in pain. Or afraid. Or…well, he had no idea. He didn't know her that well, honestly. 

"What's wrong?" he straightened up, sobering, setting aside both the bottle and the wine goblet, wondering what new calamity could have befallen them in the minutes since Bronn left his presence.

"I…," Brienne could manage nothing further. She sank down into the seat that Bronn had so recently vacated. She was distressed, that was obvious. Her eyes were holding back tears. Tyrion was completely baffled. Brienne was not a woman prone to anything resembling an emotional display.

"What is it, Brienne?" he prodded her, pushing himself out of his chair. 

She closed her eyes tightly, and there—a single tear dripped out from beneath her eyelashes, falling onto her alabaster cheeks. The sight of Brienne's tears was so uncommon and so unusual that Tyrion had no idea how to react. She whispered something but he couldn't make it out. 

"Brienne, you have to tell me what's happened—is it Sansa?" Tyrion demanded, almost angrily, dread eating through his drunken haze. But she was shaking her head slowly, another two tears joining the first.

"When Jaime left your sister and came up to fight for Daenerys Targaryen, I met him at White Harbor…," Brienne began slowly. Her voice curled around his brother's name with a heady mixture of love and grief. This piqued Tyrion's attention further, as she made no attempt to hide her feelings behind formal titles. No Ser Jaime, no Kingslayer. Just Jaime. As if… 

"I know," he nodded, not understanding at all where she was going with this. "I'm the one who sent you."

"I…," she started the same as before, but had to try again. "Your brother was—your brother and I had travelled together before and—"

"You were close," Tyrion finished for her. 

If she thought the idea was a revelation, she was being a little foolish. Tyrion was at the Dragonpit. He saw the look pass between Jaime and Brienne, and the dagger-sharp glare that Cersei cast on Brienne afterwards. If the situation then hadn't been so dire, the whole notion of Cersei being jealous of this beast of a woman would have amused him to no end.

He never had the chance to ask Jaime exactly what the nature of his relationship with Catelyn Stark's sworn sword had been. Perhaps now he would never know.

But Brienne was nodding, struggling to find the words she needed to say.

"More than close, my lord," she admitted, barely above a whisper, blushing red on the words that followed. "For one night at White Harbor anyway."

Tyrion's features finally relaxed. Was this why she was distressed? A secret night of passion with his handsome brother? Well, good for her. Tyrion was tempted to raise his glass to her victory. For decades, women had been trying to draw Jaime away from Cersei's grasp without success.  
Tyrion could list the names of a hundred high-born girls, all beautiful and provocatively dressed, who visited Casterly Rock year after year with their aim on Tywin's heir. But Jaime never gave them more than a sly grin and a chaste kiss on the hand. 

That Brienne of Tarth, plain as salt and taller than half the men in the Seven Kingdoms, had been the one to finally turn his brother's head…again, he was tempted to raise his glass.

"Well, that's not really any of my concern—" he started, thinking perhaps she felt compelled to unburden herself, or perhaps find solace in the only other person in this castle who might be willing to mourn a Lannister. Unfortunately, he was fresh out of comforting words. She would have to find her solace elsewhere. 

He reached out for his wine glass, bringing it to his lips.

"I'm carrying Jaime's child," she blurted the words out, her features a mess of misery. Forbidden love, loss of virtue, death of innocence, broken oaths, a bastard child that would have no father. It was all written there, on her grief-stricken face. "If anyone finds out, I…I don't know what to do." 

If he didn't believe her words, he had to believe her hands. As she spoke, her nervous hands came to rest on the place where her child grew. Her winter cloak hid her secret well, but under her protective caress, the fabric tightened around her body in a telling way.

_Oh Jaime, the things we leave behind…_

Tyrion took a drink. Then, he spit the wine out as soon as it passed his lips. Ned had stored this particular bottle too close to the hot springs beneath the castle. He glanced at the cup distastefully before throwing the remaining liquid into the fire. 

The sour taste lingered in his mouth for a long time afterwards.


	22. Daenerys

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter! And the next two are written and just waiting to be beta-read/edited. #mwah #staytuned
> 
> Thanks for reading! You guys are seriously the best <3

**_Daenerys_ **

Daenerys was in the eastern wing of the Keep, exploring the contents of the castle's library. Jorah had gone out hunting that morning and he and the other men weren't expected back until later in the afternoon, just before the pale, winter sun would slip so easily back down beneath the horizon. 

The weather was relatively fair, for the bleak mid-winter anyway—no frost gales were blowing, no clouds of ice and blinding snow were cluttering up the sky and threatening storm-lashings. Still, Daenerys fretted and worried, as she always did now, less than pleased with any separation between her and the man whose arms she woke up in every morning.

So she busied herself in seeking out the secrets of Bear Island. The library was a sufficient distraction. She had been lingering in the bookshelves for over an hour, eyes flickering over old bindings and scrolled ink, fingers running over raised titles written in the old languages of both Westeros and Essos. Located, as they were, on an island at the top of the world, the Mormonts had amassed an impressive collection of books and scrolls, gathered from every corner of the Seven Kingdoms. 

Illyrio Mopatis's library had been grander, with gilded shelving and skylights cut into its high cathedral ceilings, allowing in glittering shafts of Pentos sunlight. But from what Daenerys could remember, Illyrio's library had always held more marble statues than actual books. And the books Illyrio kept in his library were frivolous things—gossip rags, salacious histories and penny scripts from the theaters in Braavos and Volantis. His books had been laid out decoratively, carefully placed to complement his commissioned portraits and a thriving garden of exotic plant life.

The difference between the two places was stark.

There were no plants in the Mormont library. Only books piled on scrolls piled on books, some worn out by the eyes of five generations and all with bindings broken in and well-creased. No skylights or marble statues either. But with its resilient nature, cold sunlight still snuck into the library on Bear Island. The light filtered in as strands of gold and silver from a long row of frost-painted plate windows on the far side, lighting the room and casting Daenerys in an angelic glow that Jorah Mormont, had he been present, wouldn't have been able to resist. 

_More's the pity_ …she thought to herself. Nearly two months had passed since that first night together. They had spent far too many nights in a similar fashion. Still, she found herself craving the next time…and the next. When he walked into a room, his blue eyes always seeking out hers, it was all she could do not to jump into his strong arms. She could hear his voice in her head, clearly, teasing her— _the unquenchable passion of dragons, indeed._

Oh, but he was no better. Those same eyes betrayed him, as ever. And she would dare him to deny it.

Daenerys ran her fingers between a wide, vacant space between two volumes on a shelf that was cluttered with Westerosi songs and poems. Her fingers came away with thick lines of dust, which she brushed off with the pad of her thumb. 

The book of songs that Jorah had given her on the day they met—is this where it came from? For a wistful moment, she wished she could slip it back on the shelf with the others. Here. At home, where it belonged. She had carried those books through the Red Waste, Qarth, to Slaver's Bay and across the Narrow Sea but with the war and the battle at Winterfell…they'd been left at Dragonstone, where they remained still. 

Those books would spend the winter on an end table in an empty castle. It was a lonely thought and Daenerys shivered on it. She, too, might have spent her winter alone on Dragonstone, if she'd had any desire to heed Euron Greyjoy's suggestion.

_I'm going back to my Island. You should go back to yours. When this winter's over, we'll be the only ones left alive._

The menace in that man's smarmy face as he spoke those smug words had rattled her, though she didn't show it at the time. Sensing the danger, Jorah had lifted his sword an inch from its scabbard as a not-so-subtle warning when the brazen Kraken approached them at the Dragonpit summit. The pirate facetiously bowed to her and went his way.

When she was alone, her head buzzed with memories like this. All war and veiled threats and powerful men and women playing games with each other while the world burned and froze over by successive turns. Screech of dragon and roar of fire, metal, mud and men shouting and dying. Sometimes, she wished she could brush them all out of her head as easily as brushing dust off a shelf…

When she was with Jorah, it was easier to forget. He said time would heal her wounds and perhaps he was right. She hoped he was right. For now, his touch was the soothing balm on her unsettled spirit. 

She sighed and wandered to the frosted windows. The sunlight, though cold and distant, warmed her braided hair. But honestly, she'd rather the sun stopped lingering and teasing and just slipped beneath the horizon. Then Jorah would be home. She knew her fretting was nonsense, but cold dread was so much a part of her for so long, the feeling was hard to shake. A few hours away from Jorah and it started to creep back in again.

Restless, she left the library and went downstairs. 

There was a curving, stone staircase that led down from the upper chambers in the eastern wing directly into the Great Hall. But Lyanna was likely dictating raven's messages to her maester or conferring with Captain Claver in the Hall and Daenerys had no interest in interrupting the little she-bear. 

Jorah and his cousin had made peace, and Daenerys was glad for it. She even blessed Lyanna in her prayers for the young woman's grace in looking beyond the past…if only for the sake of blood. 

Lyanna was wise for her age. After all that had happened, the great houses of Westeros were all broken, battered or dashed to oblivion. Adding to the carnage through in-fighting and old sins would have been a tragic waste. And the Mormonts were not wasteful people. 

But despite her acceptance of Jorah, there was no question that Lyanna didn't approve of his choice of paramour. And Lyanna knew, even if nothing had been said outright. Everyone knew. Jorah and Daenerys were discrete but it was a small castle. Secrets didn't keep here. It may not have been discussed, but it was common knowledge that the dragon girl was sharing a bed with the bear lord. 

And stubborn, little Lyanna Mormont stood by her first impression of Daenerys Targaryen. She didn't trust Daenerys. She didn't trust dragons. She would be satisfied only when Daenerys left Bear Island for good. She said it only the once, but that's all she needed to say. Her expression, narrowed eyes, set frown, spoke the same words clearly every time Daenerys walked into the Hall.

Daenerys, for her part, did not argue. She didn't allow her pride and temper to give voice to the sharper words primed on her tongue. She had been a Queen for a long time and suppressing the impulse to meet Lyanna's judgment with judgment of her own was difficult. And yet, she did. For the sake of her past sins, for the sake of keeping peace when she once kept only war, and most of all, for the sake of the man she loved and the home that had been restored to him.

But Daenerys had no plans of leaving, even if winter ever softened its grip. And Jorah wouldn't let her go anyway. Not now. So damn the little she-bear's mistrust, she would have to tolerate a dragon in her midst for the time being. 

The two women had settled into a tense silence that remained unresolved. They did well enough by avoiding each other's company, especially when Jorah was absent. 

Avoiding the Hall and Lyanna, Daenerys took a staircase that led her down another level and she found herself wandering the servant's quarters for some time before following the noise of boiling water and clattering silver.

She lingered in the doorway of the kitchen, watching from the shadows. The cook and two scullery maids were busy at work, washing dishes and preparing food for the midday meal. One of the young women, her dark hair braided up into a thick bun at the nape of her neck, was kneading dough on a table lightly covered in flour. She pressed the dough flat with the heel of her hand, folded it over, and pressed down again.

Daenerys didn't realize she was staring at the girl's hands. The constant, steady motion of kneading bread dough had her transfixed. But the girl had looked up, noticing the silver-haired dragon queen staring from the doorway. 

"My lady?" the servant girl gave a brief curtsy. By her words, the other two were alerted to her presence, their quiet conversation falling off abruptly, and gave their own respectful bobs of the head. 

Daenerys greeted them warmly, knowing she had disturbed them in their work. But she couldn't help herself as she took a step forward towards the girl kneading dough and asked, "May I?"

The girl blinked in surprise but nodded immediately. Of course, she nodded. Just because Lyanna wasn't awestruck by Daenerys Targaryen didn't mean her people felt the same way. Whatever Daenerys was now, there was a time when she was the Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons and that reputation hadn't faded away quite yet. 

Daenerys stared at the lump of dough beneath her hands. She had burned fleets of ships, she had flown on the back of a dragon, she had tangled with dead men in the skies above Westeros, she had eaten a horse's heart whole…but she'd never done something as simple as baking bread. She glanced at the servant girl again, suddenly unsure of herself, but the dark-haired woman gave her a simple nod of encouragement. The heel of her cold hand pressed down against the warm dough with a satisfying give. 

This is where Jorah Mormont found his lady when he returned from trudging through the snow-covered pine and spruce woods shortly after. Down in the kitchen—chatting with Mary, the dark-haired servant girl, forearms deep in bread dough, stray lines of flour gracing her cheek.

She was smiling even before he walked in, having finally found something to keep her mind and hands busy. But in meeting his gaze, that smile broadened into a wide, irrepressible grin.


	23. Jorah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Jorah/Dany ship – how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Or I could just write about it? Yeah, let's do that.
> 
> This is the first of two chapters that are a little heavy on the Jorah/Dany shippiness. I'm assuming my readers don't mind? ;)

**_Jorah_ **

Jorah didn't touch her until they had left the kitchen and were halfway down the servant's hallway. It was a ridiculous ruse and they weren't fooling anyone with their—

"Your Grace, may I speak with you?"

"Of course, Ser Jorah."

The false titles would not last another month. And the false distance didn't last the length of the servant's hallway. Jorah's hand found her slim wrist, stopping her footsteps and bringing her up short. He drew her back into a shadowed corner alcove, his other arm encircling her waist smoothly and bringing her tight against him. She yielded without protest, her own hands sliding up his leather-clad chest to then rejoin each other around his neck. 

Grinning at the uncommon sight of Daenerys Targaryen, the last living member of a House whose words called out "fire and blood" mercilessly, with errant streaks of flour in her silver-blond hair and on her flushed cheeks—he brushed away the wheat dust on her face with two fingers. 

This brought another smile to her sweet lips, her face muscles lifting beneath his gentle touch…that smile broke open even further when he brought his lips down to claim hers. He felt her hold tighten around his neck, her arms folding over each other as their kiss deepened naturally.

"I've missed you," he whispered simply, as they broke apart.

"I've missed you too," she replied, in the same hushed manner, their foreheads still pressed together, eyes locked on each other. 

It had been a few hours of separation, no more. The notion that their parting had been long enough to stir such strong feelings of loss and reunion was utterly ridiculous. But Jorah didn't care. And the look written on Daenerys's face told him that she didn't care either. He kissed her once more, a quick brush of lips over lips, before reaching up and bringing her hands down from where they tangled around his neck.

She tipped her head slightly, trusting him always, but nonetheless wondering why he broke off the embrace so quickly. It was unlike him to release her so soon. They could easily spend half an hour or more in that alcove. 

He kissed the backs of her knuckles, as was his habit, before releasing her right hand. The left hand he retained, her fingers now interlaced with his own.

"I want to show you something," he said.

### 

The coast at Bear Island was a mess of high, jagged cliffs and salt-sprayed rocks, all thrown into sharp relief by the wildness of the landscape—black seas, blue skies and evergreen forests. The snow and ice that now froze over the sea and cast the entire Island in a spray of white and silver tinsel only further highlighted the juts and sharp curves of its remote and wild shores, hacked and slashed off the mainland to be set adrift in the first days of creation.

The sea may have frozen over but the winter breeze still acted the part of waves, crashing against the frosted shore, further smoothing the ice face of now silent waterfalls and howling at the mouths of pockmarked sea caves, nestled far beneath the jagged cliffs.

Those sea caves formed a labyrinth which dug deep towards the Island's center, hollowed out by raging storm and crashing water. The cave system was extensive, with tunnels that reached all the way from the seaside to the stone roots beneath the Mormont Keep. And while visitors and strangers to the Island might never find their way between the two, any child born on Bear Island knew the secret ways to travel from sea to castle blindfolded.

"Here, hold this," Jorah handed Daenerys a torch from the wall. The flickering pitch cast all sorts of shadow creatures on the old stones and low ceilings of the castle's cellars. They had descended another staircase, down to the crypts, and now entered a narrow hallway that was black as night and chilled with gasping drafts of cold air. 

Daenerys took the torch willingly. She was a creature of fire and always happy to have flames near her. Her other hand tightened its grip on Jorah's, as he still retained it, leading her further down the dark hallway to where the path descended steeply, down a set of uneven steps that had been hewn from the granite bedrock the Keep was built on. 

The hallway soon gave way to a tunnel, close and cold, with earthen walls and floor intermixed with large rock formations. Jorah hadn't been in these passageways since he fled the Island but his feet remembered the old path easily, each jut of rock and trick of stone as familiar as if he wandered these tunnels the day before rather than years ago. Daenerys's steps were less sure, hesitating in the dark of an unknown place, but Jorah held her steady.

They walked for some time. As they approached the end of the tunnel, Daenerys's torch illuminated the sheer face of blue and grey stone that formed the tunnel's inner wall. It was carved up with images reminiscent of those she'd seen in another underground cave on Dragonstone. Daenerys slowed her steps, examining the wall more closely. By keeping hold of his hand, she forced Jorah to linger with her.

"Did the Children of the Forest make these?" Daenerys wondered, curious. Her quiet voice echoed in the hollow spaces of the underground.

"Some of them," Jorah nodded in the darkness, pressing his free hand against the familiar etchings. His thumb dug into the frosty lichen of a spiral design, digging out the grit and grime of icy dirt and sea-salt. His fingers drifted to more recent carvings, the lines of a bear's silhouette, etched out of green-black mica with an artist's hand. He traced the silhouette with care and reverence, saying only, "My father carved this one when he was a boy."

Above the bear, there was a raven in flight. This was his father's as well, with each feather on the raven's wing cut out delicately and with attention to detail. Some of the others were drawn by Mormont hands as well, going back several generations. Other families might not have dared disturb the canvas of ancient, mystical creatures but the Mormonts had enough old blood of their own that it was less a commandeering and more a continuation.

"And this one?" Daenerys took a step forward, holding the torch higher, to where the light flickered and glinted off a beautiful carving of a majestic beast with talons raised and wings outstretched. The details on the etching matched the style and talent of Jeor's, though not exactly. And the subject, a _dragon_ , would have been too much fantasy for the Old Bear. His wayward son, however…

"That one's mine," Jorah answered modestly, gently tightening the grip on her hand in a telling way. He continued with self-effacement, "When I was young, my dreams were filled with dragons…much to my father's dismay."

She turned to him with surprise, her expression registering a myriad of emotions—connection, loss, fate. It was all tied up together. His younger self couldn't have known what that carving might symbolize later on but there it was, staring out from the past with a knowledge of time and space beyond them both, further insisting that their connection went deep…perhaps deeper than either of them knew. 

Not that they needed the reminder.

Looking back at the bear and raven, Jorah wondered if his father could see him now, if he could see how the path of fools had led to a path less traveled. A path home. Would he be pleased to know Jorah was here once more, in this place? Would he embrace him? Or would he show the fury of bears and start scratching off the dragon etching, banishing him from both the present and the past? 

Jorah didn't know. He would _never_ know. And that thought never ceased to tear at his soul.

Finally, his gaze came away from the wall of carvings. Daenerys was watching him. Her eyes had been on him for some time and he turned into her glance, quiet concern playing at her features. 

She felt his father's loss too, despite never meeting the Old Bear. It was for Jorah's sake that she felt that loss. She could read his soul with one look. Violet eyes brimming with feeling, she took a step towards him, leaned up and softly kissed his cheek.

He squeezed her hand once more, before nudging her forward, towards the sea cave just beyond the tunnel's end.

"Come, there's more…"


	24. Daenerys

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the words of my lovely/awesome beta-reader, "Why Should Jon Snow Get All the Steamy Cave Action?"
> 
> Answer: He shouldn't.
> 
> #mwah

**_Daenerys_ **

The sea cave, although more open to the winter air as its wide, squat mouth faced the full expanse of the frozen sea, was _warm_. 

Daenerys noticed the change in temperature immediately, as she followed Jorah inside, stepping through a narrow space between tall, grey stones covered in frost-kissed lichen. It was an odd sensation and one she hadn't felt in months. The air in the cave was heavier than in the tunnels and it didn't burn at her lungs when she breathed it in. It was as if she was standing a few steps from a fire and she was suddenly tempted to throw off the fur coat on her shoulders and bask in the unexpected heat.

As Jorah led her into the cave's center, she found herself walking on sand. Over the course of a hundred summers, fairer winds had blown it in off the shore and it collected, like dust, everywhere in the sea cave. Small dunes smoothed out the jagged rock ledges that ringed the cave in varying levels. 

Currently, the sand on the Bear Island beaches was frozen stiff and buried beneath feet of snow and crusted ice. But here, the sand was soft under her leather and fur-lined boots, as if she were walking a beach in Slaver's Bay, instead of a sea cave in the Frozen North.

She soon discarded the torch in the sand. Loose strands of gold-orange sunlight on the southern horizon, the last of the short day, were flooding the cave, illuminating its curved walls and glittering pillars, reflecting off quartz and silver flecks. The sun's rays glinted off the smooth shale of a raised dais of large flat stones and bounced off of a collection of hot springs dotted throughout. White mist steamed off the magma-heated pools of water and deposited droplets of condensation on the sparkling stalactites hanging from the cave ceiling.

The hot springs could be blamed for most of the cave's warmth. But only most…as there was also a massive, black dragon sleeping on the largest of those smooth, flat stones, each hot breath from his impressive nostrils giving off another spark of heat and red flame that further warmed the air surrounding him. 

"Drogon!" Daenerys cried out his name, relief and joy coloring her tone. Her delight at seeing her last living dragon, alive and well, was palpable. With a chuckle at her unbridled excitement, Jorah released her hand and she nearly ran to the dragon's side.

"You're alive," she mused to the sleeping beast, hands stroking his scales, eyes flickering towards his shoulder and the spot where the spear had punctured his hide. He'd removed the spear himself but the wound seemed to be healing nicely. She ran her hand over the hard lump of scar tissue that was already crusting over with scale-like resilience.

"Seffius and I found him when we were checking the coast for seals," Jorah explained, joining her beside the dragon. With some pride, he added, "He's been here since we landed. He's a survivor…like his mother."

"He won't wake?" she asked, while fussing over Drogon, checking his wings, his talons, his scales and hide. She stroked his familiar face but his eyes remained closed, even while his breath was slow and steady. The dragon didn't wake to any of her touches.

Jorah shook his head, "He's hibernating. It's a deep sleep that animals fall into while winter rages on. They need less food this way and can outlast the sparseness of the season. They preserve their energy and rebuild their strength. He'll wake when he's hungry but otherwise, he'll sleep winter away and wake in the spring."

" _If_ spring ever comes again…," Daenerys muttered, unsure.

"Spring will come, _Khaleesi_ ," Jorah promised her, his words strong and certain, his arms folded over his chest and boots planted in the sand with that firm stance that spoke of certain truth. His calm, raspy voice held no doubts and, as always, that was enough to convince her. 

Though she needed little convincing. In her experience, Jorah's promises always came true. He'd promised her she would see Drogon again. And here Drogon was. In Essos, he said he'd find her a ship. He said he would never abandon her, that he would keep her safe and that he would take her home. 

And he had done it all. Many times over. 

Even when he didn't have to, even when she didn't deserve it. From the beginning, he gave her love and devotion freely. Not as a knight swears fealty to his queen, but as a man swears a blood oath to the woman he loves. 

_I am hers and she is mine._

_I am his._ Daenerys answered the ancient words in her head with stubborn conviction, daring any one of the gods listening to say otherwise. Those words were written on her heart, emblazoned with ink that would never rub off. The ink was renewed each time Jorah's gaze turned her way. As it did now, his handsome features creased with joy at her joy. 

He lived to make her happy and give her hope. Unceasing hope…whenever her thoughts turned dark and whenever the world turned cold. 

_In the dead of winter, he brings me sunshine and fire._

Sudden tenderness for Jorah stirred within her breast. And then something more than tenderness. He must have seen the change in her eyes for his expression altered, his jaw moving slightly as his arms unfolded slowly. Dragon fire and that white steam rolling off the hot springs weren't the only sources of heat in the cave. Suddenly, she knew she couldn't keep the furs on any longer.

Her hands slid off Drogon's scales smoothly and she left the sleeping dragon, joining Jorah where he stood, now watching her with a heady mixture of sudden uncertainty and ever-present adoration. Her eyes didn't break from his as she took those few steps and she said nothing, not in so many words. But as she walked, she undid the clasps on her coat with nimble, seductive fingers. Jorah continued watching her movements, transfixed as always. He swallowed but couldn't manage another word as she came near, stopping directly in front of him, dropping the outer coat into the sand beside them. 

She didn't stop at the furs, peeling off layer after layer of wool, leather and linen, until she stood naked before him.

"Come," she said, echoing his own command from earlier. 

His furs and leather came off with little trouble. Her determined fingers helped, unbuckling the sword belt and undoing the small, metal clasps on his jerkin with insistence. His clothes soon joined hers in the sand. 

She led him into the nearest pool, her bare feet slipping into the water like a hot knife through butter. With both his hands captured by hers, she drew him in with her, sinking down further, knees, thighs, breasts submerged, the heated water warming her skin straight through and coaxing the fire in her blood to flame. 

For a fleeting, feckless moment, she was reminded of the pool that she'd stepped into the day Viserion and Illyrio Mopatis sold her off to the Dothraki hoard.

That day, she might have just as easily drowned herself in Illyrio's pool and let herself slip away into oblivion, giving in to all those feelings of fear and loneliness that had turned the steaming water to an ice bath—the water had been scalding that day, but she remembers feeling only frigid, cold and alone.

But this time she was not alone. And Jorah's hands over her naked flesh added an element of heat and hunger that she could not have imagined that day in Pentos. Her own hands were on his bare chest and abdomen, creeping over the contours of his muscular body with practice, water dripping from her fingertips every time her hands crested the waterline.

Jorah's kisses, laced with the tang of saltwater, filled her mouth, his tongue running against the pearly curve of her smooth teeth before tangling with her own. She gave him kisses freely, with only one condition. That he give her more. He always gave her what she wanted. Out of the water, Jorah could lift her easy. In the pool, he need only clasp his forearm around her waist and she stayed in place, her legs wrapped tightly around his hips. 

The hot spring was nearly oval-shaped and shoulder deep at its center. The water was crystal clear and bathwater hot, its volcanic origins leaving their skin flushed and ruddy. Though perhaps that wasn't all the water's fault, as Daenerys's insistent hands and Jorah's lack of willpower—when it came to his dragon girl anyway—won out again. And again.

The dragon slept through it all. 

When they finally emerged from the pool, the sun had nearly set. A single strand of orange-gold ringed the dark horizon, adorning the black cosmos like delicate jewelry. Above, silver stars began peeking out from their lofty perches. 

Half-dressed now in her cream-colored linen shift, Daenerys brought her silver-blond hair to one side of her face, twisting and squeezing the drenched ends, water dripping into the sand at her feet. She glanced over at Jorah. He always dressed more quickly than her, already looking every inch the northern lord once again. In that outfit, all black, somber and dignified, no one would ever guess his activities of the last hour.

As she wrung out her hair, Daenerys smirked to herself, knowing better. 

She pulled on her overdress before twisting the ends of her hair once again. Moving behind her, Jorah helped her do up the buttons on the back of the dress, dipping once to press a lingering kiss against her damp, bare shoulder blade. She exhaled softly at the renewed touch of his lips, dropping her hair to turn slightly, hand drifting up to cup his bearded chin lovingly, accepting yet one more kiss, this one careful and slow, their appetite for each other never quite sated.

A sudden noise at the mouth of the sea cave—a shuffling of frozen feet, a desperate, pitiful cry of despair—reached their ears at the same time, breaking them apart prematurely. Jorah, ever vigilant, stepped in front of Daenerys, swiftly taking her arm and pushing her behind him in a single motion, shielding her from the as-yet-unknown danger.

"Oh!" Daenerys cried out in recognition, as she stood on tip toe, catching sight of the intruder over Jorah's shoulder. Jorah said nothing but his features mirrored Daenerys—surprise and pity taking their turns. 

The man—creature, perhaps, was the better term—who stumbled into the sea cave was wounded, half-frozen, near death and frostbitten from head to feet. He looked as if death had taken him already. His eyes were frozen over and, though he tried, he found he couldn't speak, vocal chords torn up by breathing nothing but frigid, sub-zero air for too many days in a row. 

He was much altered from when they had seen him last, but they both recognized him immediately.

Theon Greyjoy, the Turncoat Ward of Winterfell, managed one last step and one last half-moan of pain, reaching out to Jorah and Daenerys as he found himself collapsing onto the sand.


	25. Tyrion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, summer. I love it. I love it like Cersei loves drinking wine and blowing up Tyrells. But man, it steals my weekend time and leaves very little for writing. *sad face*
> 
> Just looked at the date of my last update. Yikes. I'd love to say that I'm back on the regular schedule, but I'm making no promises until we get to August.
> 
> In other news, I see they've finally finished filming S8. Which means we'll get a new trailer in like 6-8 months? Well, a fangirl can dream. In the meantime, guess I'll just have to keep writing the Jorah/Dany approved version of how things actually went down ;)
> 
> I'll be back with a new Jorah chapter in a couple weeks (or maybe even next week if I magically find a couple spare moments)! Xo

**_Tyrion_ **

"I don't understand why you thought it was your place to make that decision!" Sansa's anger was boiling over. She paced across the length of her chambers and back again like a prowling, scarlet-haired she-wolf, clenching her fists in frustration. She'd summoned him to her rooms so she could confront him alone—and alone, she felt no need to keep up the pretense of courtly manners. When she turned on him, Tyrion couldn't help but see Catelyn Stark glowering at him through her eldest daughter's eyes. 

He was reminded of that moment in the Crossroads Inn and the steely look in Catelyn's eyes as she seized the debt she believed was owed—thinking it was _he_ who had thrown Bran from the tower window, or at the very least, hired the assassin who tried to kill the crippled boy as he slept. He pled his innocence truthfully from the beginning but Lady Stark still took him captive, sparking a war that would spiral far beyond the control of either Lannister or Stark.

Tyrion winced on the unpleasant memory and on all the ones that followed—of a sky cell in the Vale and Lysa Tulley's idiot son demanding to see the half-man fly. They were strange times. But no stranger than the ones they found themselves in now. Winter, spring, summer and fall. The shadows of life could be found throughout the seasons.

Still, he stood firm, despite Sansa's towering presence and accusing glare.

"If I had known you would react this way, I would have asked you first," he answered, lying seamlessly. He'd decided to play the fool, despite knowing that Sansa had been groomed for years by Littlefinger and knew every trick of tongue and turn of phrase as well as any politician. One look and he knew she wasn't buying it. 

"She's my sworn sword!" Sansa replied, adding emphatically, "And you are not Lord of Winterfell, Tyrion."

"No, I am not," Tyrion agreed immediately, his head dropping a degree, giving her the respect she demanded. And deserved. If he were able to explain, he would make it clear that this was no play for power or attempt to undermine her authority. Sansa was the Queen of the North. Queen of Winter. Perhaps even Queen of his heart.

The last title was an uncertain one, but he was self-aware enough to know that his admiration for her had only grown in the last few months and that he was as equally inclined to focus on her pretty face as her raging words, as she now stood fuming before him. 

But he couldn't give her any explanation. The secret wasn't his. It was his brother's and Brienne of Tarth's—and the unborn child that had been given life in the darkest days of their generation. 

"But why would you send her to Greywater Watch?" Sansa demanded, her tone softening slightly, desperate to understand his actions, unwilling to believe he acted against her. He understood the depth of her words too well. 

The loneliness and despair that clutched at his heart since the battle at Winterfell clutched at hers as well. They were broken people, many times shattered. But in the final breaking, she thought they were finally beyond betrayals and intrigue…yet, here he was, Tyrion Lannister, seemingly sending her sworn sword on a clandestine mission that he failed to share with her.

_Why Greywater Watch?_

Brienne had asked him the same thing when he suggested she travel to the seat of House Reed to deliver the child. She had begged him to find her a place to go, as she was convinced that she could not have the baby at Winterfell. There were too many northerners here who had no love lost on the Kingslayer, despite the heroic actions of his last days. Jaime's child would not be welcome in these halls and the revelation that Brienne had set aside her duty and honor for a tryst with a Lannister…they would slander and condemn her without mercy.

Brienne's emotions were raw, her ever-present notions of duty and honor complicated by lingering grief for Jaime and fierce protectiveness of their unborn child. But Tyrion couldn't deny her fears had solid foundations. The Night King had united them all at the end, smoothing over decades of prejudices and grievances, petty wars, both great and small, all set aside in favor of survival. But Tyrion was clever enough to know that those same old fissures would crack and reopen eventually. 

Winter made lambs out of all the animals in the forest. But winter wouldn't last forever. 

So Tyrion sent her to Greywater Watch, to have the child in secret. The journey would be treacherous in this weather but Brienne was set upon it and set out immediately after Tyrion assured her that the Reeds were understanding folk who would not ask questions. 

It was common knowledge. More than any other person alive, Howland Reed knew how to keep a secret well. He'd certainly proven that over the last couple decades, hadn't he? 

Tyrion almost smirked on the notion. If Sansa weren't still staring him down, with all her Stark indignation and hot-tempered Tulley rage flashing in waves across her features, he might have. He had spent more time with spymasters than most. And the idea that, all this time, Varys and Littlefinger knew far less than old Howland Reed, Lord of the Swamps, was darkly comical.

_You set out to restore House Targaryen by calling back its exiles from across the Narrow Sea, Varys…inciting wars and playing games, with all your little birds singing pretty songs in your ears. But your little birds missed the greatest song of all time. A Northern ballad about a bastard brother of the Night's Watch who was the true King of Seven Kingdoms and never knew it._

But Howland Reed knew it. That old man knew the truth for more than twenty years and never breathed a word. For Ned's sake, for pity's sake, for the sake of a child who never asked to be born in the first place? Tyrion didn't know. Having spent too much time at politics, the idea that a secret could be kept for more than an afternoon was still foreign to him.

But he admired Howland Reed for the sheer audacity of keeping that secret. And he knew, if Brienne wanted to keep hers, Greywater Watch was the only place in all the Seven Kingdoms where such a thing might be possible. 

To Sansa, he said only, "We still have a lot of unanswered questions—about Jon, about Rhaegar and your Aunt Lyanna, about what happened at the Tower of Joy—and Howland Reed may be the only one who can answer those questions."

"Bran has seen it all," Sansa countered.

"Does your brother share his visions with you?" Tyrion asked pointedly, not meaning to be cruel but knowing how his words would land on her ears. The Three-Eyed Raven kept much to himself, pondering it all away. He made grand revelations when they were needed but felt no inclination to elaborate and explain, only to reveal. 

And when he did reveal or give warning, as only a near-all-seeing being could, he chose to give those warnings or discuss those revelations with Samwell Tarly, who he had adopted as a surrogate brother soon after meeting him. Sansa, Bran's trueborn sister and lady of the castle, was never summoned to his chambers or made privy to those visions and insights…except secondhand through Sam.

Her brother's coldness and obvious preference for Sam nettled her deeply, and Tyrion knew it. He knew too that it wasn't petty jealousy that stirred these feelings in her, but loneliness and loss, and the simple desire to have one of her brothers back.

In that, he could sympathize. And the fact that he used a pain he knew so well against her wasn't right. He regretted it immediately and would have snatched back the words if he could.

But they were spoken and Sansa's queenly rage was already melting away. Replaced by a sharp, unhealed pain that she quickly covered up with a stony façade that said she was done arguing with him.

Her set frown didn't alter. Too angry to speak, she shook her head slowly, more to herself than to him, and left her own chambers without another word.


	26. Jorah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've almost finalized the rest of the POVs for this fic. Still about 1/3 to go I think…just based on the number of chapters left. Hopefully you guys are still enjoying it! :)
> 
> Like I said last time, updates will still be slower than normal until at least the beginning of August, but then hoping to get back to the once a week schedule. Fingers crossed that real life cooperates.
> 
> To all my readers, thank you for all your faves/comments!! You guys are the absolute best <3

**_Jorah_ **

A snow storm moved in from the frozen waters in the night, howling at the castle walls, reminding them all that winter was not nearly done with them. The beeswax candles flickered and the fires threatened to go out with every gale force blown down their chimneys. The noise was thunderous. 

But no one in the Mormont Keep was sleeping that night anyway.

Theon Greyjoy was dying. Maester Morlan and Daenerys stayed with him, the maester tending the blackened flesh of frostbite on the young man's body, Daenerys giving him comfort as he faded in and out of consciousness. 

Lyanna, Seffius Claver and Jorah stood just outside the sickroom. They lingered in the hall, speaking in hushed tones. 

Lyanna stood nearest the doorway, staring into the sickroom, watching the maester lift Theon up from the soft pillows and drip milk of the poppy down his throat with a soaked cloth. A scowl remained fixed on Maester Morlan's face, as the milk did little more than ease Theon's pain. As the hours slipped by, the young man's condition continued to deteriorate. 

Just behind Lyanna, Jorah and Seffius discussed his injuries and speculated on how long he'd been walking in the swirling snow and shifting ice. 

They hadn't been able to get an answer out of Theon. When Jorah and Daenerys brought the Greyjoy boy back from the sea cave, he'd been speaking near nonsense. When he recognized Daenerys, he became frantic and agitated as he attempted to give her warnings—about what was unclear and too soon, he fell back into a slump, the weary walk over unknown miles of sea ice catching up with him.

"But how did he get here?" Lyanna wondered aloud, quietly, turning back to both Seffius and Jorah for explanation. The men were shaking their heads. 

"A ship?" Seffius guessed, looking at Jorah, who nodded. "It's the only explanation. Perhaps they were on open water and became trapped in the ice?"

"Why would they sail northern waters in winter?" Lyanna asked, unconvinced. She added gruffly, "They know the dangers of being entrapped by ice."

"The Greyjoys aren't known for staying on their islands, even in the best of times," Jorah mentioned, from old experience. How much of his youth was spent skirmishing with the Ironborn? "They feed themselves by raiding our shores and the shores of the mainland. Maybe their supplies ran scarce and they've been forced back into it."

"Euron Greyjoy is arrogant enough to take on winter seas," Seffius agreed, having tussled with the pirate lord on open water more than once. Euron's arrogance rivaled that of the damned Drowned God.

"But Theon wouldn't join with his uncle in a raid," Lyanna replied, frowning, still unsure how this broken man had ended up on her shores. Lyanna didn't like uncertainties. Jorah's father had been the same. She continued, "He broke with his uncle and swore oaths to Daenerys before she travelled across the Narrow Sea."

At her name, Daenerys looked over from Theon's deathbed. She held the broken man's hand in her own, hoping the fiery warmth in her fingers might flood his veins and work its magic. But it was a desperate hope for a desperate man…and she was failing. She met Jorah's gaze beyond the doorway and her expression was grim.

Seffius was speaking again, "Last we heard—he'd left Dragonstone with some of the Ironborn to confront his uncle."

Jorah scratched at his jawline, nodding and confirming, "He wasn't with us at Winterfell."

"Perhaps he was victorious," Seffius shrugged. 

"There's no victory in this," Lyanna answered, exhaling with a defeated breath and casting another glance towards the man dying in her halls. Her tone was clear. She was tired of death. Theon's sudden appearance, this doomed attempt to save his life—it was another sobering reminder that this winter would try to kill them all before it was done. Beginning with Theon Greyjoy…

"Your Grace!" Theon sputtered out of his unconscious stupor, spilling some of the maester's draught with the sudden burst of strength in his arms and legs. His eyes were wild and frantic—until he saw Daenerys nearby. He swallowed sharply, repeating in a hoarse voice, "Your Grace…my uncle! And the…I tried to kill him but—and Robb, I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry…"

"Shhh," Daenerys coaxed him back with Maester Morlan's assistance. Theon's cries softened as the milk of the poppy took effect, easing him back to oblivion. 

### 

Maester Morlan had done what he could. Theon rested quietly, though his breath was too shallow and his pallor had gone from a frosted white to a sickly grey. Neither color suited him. The shadow world beckoned him near and it was only a matter of time before he fell into it.

"He'll die tonight, won't he?" Daenerys asked Jorah. She hadn't moved from Theon's bedside, now perched on the edge of the mattress, her feet dangling just above the cold, stone floor. Theon's hand was still in hers. His grip, at first desperately grasping at hers like a lifeline, was fading away with the rest of him. If she let go, his hand would tumble weakly to the furs they'd covered him in. 

With little more they could do, the others had all gone. Daenerys remained, unwilling to let Theon breathe his last in a room all alone. Jorah remained as well, standing near Daenerys, as always.

He was reminded of another deathbed vigil they'd shared years ago, in a hot, dusty, Dothraki tent far across the sea. 

Her misery had been terrible that time, having lost her child, her husband and her future in only a few hours' time. His heart always tore in two on the memory of her tear-stained face, damp eyes pleading with his—asking him for hope, where there was none to give. 

The years that had passed from that moment to this had given her enough experience with death that she knew the answer to her own question. No tears this time, only quiet resignation. 

But still, she asked. 

"Yes, he will," Jorah answered her honestly, without pleasure. She wasn't close to the boy, he knew that. Her alliance had been with Theon's sister, Yara, salt-tested and sea-born, with all of Old Balon's iron running through her veins. Theon was just the weak-willed fool that Yara propped up and hoped to make whole again. 

Yet, Daenerys seemed drawn to him. Jorah wasn't surprised. How often had he seen her gentle heart reach out to those most broken and in need of salvation? 

He counted himself among them.

"He has regrets that plague his mind," Daenerys mused, as she reached up and gently smoothed a lock of Theon's hair back, as a mother might caress a sleeping child. Jorah's gaze shifted from Theon back to Daenerys. He recognized the troubled note in her voice—she wasn't just talking about Theon Greyjoy.

"We all have regrets," Jorah replied softly, knowing his own well. He lived with them daily, giving them audience to slander him and shame him until the end of his days, letting him know at every moment that he wasn't worthy of the second chances he'd been given. 

He'd grown used to them and it was nothing he didn't deserve.

But it was _her_ regrets that she hinted at and that Theon's reappearance had awakened in her head. And those regrets he _wouldn't_ allow. Her choices had never been easy. Her life had never been her own, not from the moment she was whisked away and hidden across the sea—a pawn for her vicious brother, a prize for his highest bidder. 

She made the best of what she'd been given. And what she'd been given for so long was fire and blood, whether she wanted it or not. 

Her regrets could go hang themselves.

Jorah cautioned gently, "You can't take on his burdens as well, Daenerys."

"He swore his oaths to me and look where he's ended up," she replied in a quiet voice, melancholy coloring her tone. "Look where they all ended up. Lady Olenna, Yara, Missandei, Grey Worm, Irri, Jon—" 

She swallowed, unable to finish the list.

"You aren't responsible for their deaths," Jorah told her firmly. "They followed you out of love and a belief in something beyond themselves. Even if they had seen their futures written out in the night sky, they would've followed you just the same."

"You don't know that," she shook her head stubbornly, eyes locked on Theon's broken body, seeing her arrogance and blindness reflected back in the flickering life of a dying man. 

Jorah took a step closer. Reaching down, he tipped her chin up so she was forced to look at him.

Again, he was reminded of the night Khal Drogo died. But this time, the horrors she felt weren't written on her face. Instead, they were screamed across his heart. 

He'd always been sensitive to those feelings that she kept hidden away and the way she retreated inside her head to face the darkness by herself. How many times had he turned to her and saw her swallow back the grief that any other woman would have been allowed? That she should be allowed. 

But now, he could feel her pain in a way that he hadn't been able to before, with all its swirling darkness and unknown depths. And he would be damned if he let her face it alone.

"What we've done, we cannot change," he stated simply. "But we move forward, as we must. Until we can no longer, counting ourselves blessed if someone is there at the end to hold our hand until we reach our final peace."

With his thumb, Jorah wiped away the single tear that was falling from her violet eyes. She closed her eyes briefly, swallowing back any further tears and nodding her acquiescence to his unasked plea— _don't dwell in your darker thoughts, my princess…for my sake if not for your own._

Jorah touched his thumb and forefinger to her chin once more, in affection, before pulling his fingers back. He remained close, within reach. But her hands were occupied, both now holding tight to Theon's hand, imparting whatever comfort the dying man might find in her simple touch.

_You are not alone, Theon._

They said no more, listening to Theon Greyjoy's final, peaceful breaths in solemn silence.


	27. Sandor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is what happens when you're scrolling through #GoT Tumblr and happen across a still of Sansa and the Hound from Season 2…and suddenly remember all the awesomeness of those early seasons and how much time they spent on character development and mmmm yes, the echoes of a thousand AU versions of Beauty and the Beast were thrown all over the place. Not that I'm complaining. :)
> 
> So anyway, I rewatched the Battle of the Blackwater and then found myself writing this.
> 
> Please note that this chapter in no way diminishes my interest in Sansa/Tyrion (*heart eyes*). However, it certainly doesn't diminish my interest in Sansa/Sandor either (*more heart eyes*). Let's hope I can find a way to cure my multi-shipping ways before the end.

**_Sandor_ **

Once, a long time ago now, Sandor Clegane had waited in a dark room for Sansa Stark to appear. 

That night, he was soaked in blood, drunk on sour wine and in a fouler temper than usual. It was in the dead of night, in the middle of a battle—the gods-be-damned siege of King's Landing and the city was on fire. Its burning embers filled the streets with the smell of smoke and ash. His skin crawled whenever he thought back on it. 

Fuck the fire and its lifelong power over him. 

From the battlements above the Blackwater, Tyrion's wildfire worked like magic. Fire sprung up everywhere and spilled into the city so eagerly. The flames grew higher and higher and there was nothing to stop it. Bodies were burning. Stone was burning. Even the fucking _water_ was burning. Sandor was standing on the blood-stained beach in the light of raging orange flames when he suddenly realized he had to leave. He couldn't stay, not even if the gods commanded it. Fuck the battle, fuck the war and fuck the king.

But before he left, he went to the Red Keep, thinking he would spring the little bird from her cage on his way out. He sat at the foot of her bed, ignoring the overwhelming stench of smoke and cinders wafting in the windows of the Red Keep, keeping his fears at bay through drink and the unlikely idea that he might finally get Sansa away from that cursed place.

_Killer or not, I would have saved you if you let me._

It was a pretty thought but unlikely. If she had fled with him during the Battle of the Blackwater, under dark of night, under the chaos of fire and blood, secreted away far beyond Cersei Lannister's reach…would it have made a difference? Would she have escaped the worst of her fate?

_Not a fucking chance._

He knew better. Sansa's fate was sealed the moment she arrived in King's Landing. Perhaps the moment she was born, too pretty and sweet for a world built by killers like him. If she had gone with him that night, he would have delivered her to her mother and brother, thinking she was safe among the wolf pack. But if he had succeeded, she would have been slaughtered at the Red Wedding with the rest of them. 

_Red is her color. Always red._

Sandor knew too well how life played out. Nothing good can stay. Nothing fresh goes unspoiled. Nothing sweet escapes the sour. 

These were the thoughts that lingered in his head most hours of the day, too familiar and predictable to dwell on for long. His life was never a precious thing, even before the Night King knocked down the Wall and winter came to stay. 

Honestly, winter didn't bother him. 

It was cold as a fucking icebox, of course, and they'd probably starve or kill each other before the end—if the storms didn't do it for them. But he was alive. Still alive, while Ned Stark, Tywin Lannister, Stannis Baratheon, Jaime and Cersei, that little bastard Joffrey, Littlefinger, Beric Dondarrion and his smug fire priest, Jon Snow or Jon Targaryen or whatever-the-fuck his name was—all dead, all rotting away. 

He didn't deserve to be alive. But he never asked to survive either. Not even back at the beginning, when he was a child and his brother forced his head into the coals and ash of a flaming brazier. 

And mulling it over, replaying the last however many years of blood, war, fire, armies of the dead—it wouldn't change a thing. 

So he fell asleep most nights easily, his dreams no more tormented than usual. Life had been shit before. Life was shit now. What was the difference?

_A hound deserves no better…_ he reminded himself. Often.

Yet, his ongoing nihilism never stopped him from pulling his weight and attempting to get them through the damn winter. With fresh meat always running low, he went hunting in the dragon-charred, snow-covered forests often, trudging back through the frost-damned cold with the same mumbled curses, whether or not he found game. 

This night, he brought back a brace of skinny hares, returning after midnight and depositing the meat in the Winterfell kitchens before retiring to the small room in the old servant's quarters that he'd claimed for himself. Much like winter, the chamber's location didn't bother him. As he'd reminded Sansa and himself more times than he could count, he was no lord or knight worthy of anything better.

Besides, most of the servants were dead with the rest. And a bed was a bed.

He carried a candle into his dark bedroom. As he brought in the light, a slim, willowy figure by the frost-stained window shifted, quietly alerting him to its presence. She was sitting in the dark, waiting for him. He recognized her immediately, just by the turn of her pretty head.

This time, it was Sansa who was waiting for Sandor.

With their roles reversed and with her presence so unlikely, in this place, at this time of night…her eyes found his and latched on. But in the extended silence that followed, she didn't explain herself and he didn't know what to say. So he said nothing, and merely placed the candle on the nightstand, casting light in dark places, just as she had done that long ago night in King's Landing.

She sat with her hands in her lap. With no rag doll to clutch this time, her fingers were restless and tangled with themselves. Her hands settled as he took a cautious step towards her and then another, reaching over her, nearly brushing the silk of her skirt…as he retrieved a second candle from where it was perched on a wooden trunk beneath her window. 

He broke their tense stare and moved back to the nightstand, lighting the second candle with the first, brightening the room further. The strands of her red hair were illuminated by the candlelight.

_Red is your color._

She watched him merge the wicks of both candles silently, with those same blue-grey eyes that had played witness to atrocities, deception and wickedness for years. Littlefinger's lessons went deep. And the Master of Coin had no doubt taught her how to keep her eyes neutral or shift, as required, for her audience.

When he finished with the candle, he turned back to meet her gaze once more.

Sandor would never have Littlefinger's talent for keeping secrets and playing at feelings. But, simple as he may be, Sandor only ever saw truth in Sansa's eyes—her nettled fears and that same old sadness that she couldn't shake. Sadness clung to her like dust on the wings of grey moths. Behind that sadness though, he still saw the spark of the little songbird blinking out behind all the hurt that came after.

It had been this way for a long time—before Winterfell, before the dead men came down from wherever the hell they were hiding, before Robb Stark, Stannis Baratheon and Joffrey, that-fucking-little-cunt, all met their untimely ends. Back to King's Landing, when she was still a child and he still wore a white cloak. 

_You won't hurt me._

_No, I won't hurt you._

She was a survivor too. Like him, her resilience went deep. Far deeper than it had any right to go.

And, in that, she couldn't hide herself from him. But perhaps she didn't want to… 

For what other reason could explain what she was doing waiting in his room in the middle of the night? 

"He's sent Brienne away," she said finally, in a small, quiet voice. "He didn't ask me and neither did she. But she's gone, just like that…and I have no idea why."

He didn't speak immediately, gauging the impact of his words first. He remained by the nightstand, too unsure to bridge the distance between them.

"Tyrion may have his reasons," Sandor replied, wondering why he felt the need to defend the dwarf. He supposed there was solidarity in survival, even among monsters and grotesques. 

"Then why didn't he explain those reasons?" Sansa continued, sharply. 

Her features were still so delicate, as they had been as a child. Yet, in the woman she had become, there was strength behind her voice and a pale beauty that he couldn't match—despite his physical presence and rough manners. She was stronger than him—tough as old leather and sharp as Valyrian steel.

Not a fighter like Arya—no. She couldn't wield a sword to save her life. And he could still remember her begging for her father's sake on the tiles of the Throne Room in King's Landing. But the Sansa he'd covered with his cloak was long gone. Had this Sansa been there instead…she might have walked up to Joffrey and sliced his throat open with a dagger she pulled from Sandor's belt.

For she was bold enough. _Strong_ enough. 

She left the window, rising from the wide sill and crossing the short distance between them, where she came to rest before him, eyes still locked with his.

Twin candles smoothed out her already smooth skin, as if she was made of porcelain, while it cast his ruined features into sharper relief, showing every pockmark, every scar and every hideous twist of flesh on the burned side.

He was never self-conscious about his scars, having lived with his burns for decades. And he had faced Sansa before, just like this, nearly half an age ago. But that time, he was the one who approached her, and she had been a child holding a rag doll to her chest. 

She was a child no longer and her beauty, hinted at back then, was now both breathtaking and dangerous, like the chill of a white, winter morning. So still, so unwilling to admit the threat of storms on the horizon.

And he, a mangy, mangled dog, was not a fit witness to any of it. He had the sudden urge to hide away and, with a hitch in his breath, he turned the ruined side of his face away from the light. 

He would have stepped aside but Sansa stopped him by reaching up and cupping her soft palm against the old burns. Stunned, he remained where he was. With her curious fingers, she explored the ridges and leathery flesh of his mutilated face, tracing the uneven planes, where the flesh had melted and scarred over.

The heat of the brazier was seared into his brain. With very little effort, he could feel the flames licking, biting, burning at his flesh once again. If he thought on it too long, it was all he could do to keep from screaming.

But Sansa's hands were cold and gentle as she explored the scar tissue, banishing the memory of flames away with the chilled ice of the Queen of Winter. When she finally brought her hand down again, her fingers slid from his cheek bone slowly, one finger after another, to curl into her own palm. He was left with the sensation of trails of ice on his skin.

"Never lie to me," she begged him, the words no more than a whisper.

"Never," he replied, unable to consider a different answer.

In response, she placed her hand on his chest for a moment, palm flat against the leather. Did she lean up and press her lips to his? Or did he imagine it? 

Did he kiss her before he left King's Landing? He can't remember now. He should have. He remembers telling Arya that he should have.

But then Sansa was gone…with nothing to mark her midnight visit but twin candles and the sweet, ghostly taste of ice lingering on Sandor's lips.


	28. Lyanna

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I say this a lot but seriously, I love my readers! <3
> 
> Your comments are always so insightful! And since we have *checks wristwatch* oh-I-don't-know about half a year or more to wait for our show to return, it's lovely to keep all the theories, hopes and dreams alive in fanfic land. And perhaps delude ourselves into thinking D&D might give us the Season 8 we deserve *insert gif of Bonnie Hunt's character in Jerry Maguire saying "you f*ck this up and I'll kill you" before she downs her drink*) ;)
> 
> Okay, okay, some Jorah/Dany shippiness on the horizon *heart eyes.* But first thing's first, Lyanna's got some thoughts. I mean, doesn't she always? 
> 
> Xoxo

**_Lyanna_ **

They burned Theon's body. 

They stood on the level plateau of one of the steep, snowy hills outside the Keep. A sparse pyre was built by the men, with Theon's body, wrapped in linen, placed gently upon it. Jorah lit the base aflame with a touch of the torch in his right hand. As it caught fire, he stepped back to stand next to Daenerys, who grasped the hood of her silver and black furs tight around her, watching the flames grow with a faraway expression in her pale, lavender eyes.

It was a waste of wood but Lyanna could see no other way to give Theon a proper burial. The ground was frozen beyond any spadework and the sea ice was too thick to consecrate him to the Drowned God, as his forefathers had been for generations. And despite the defeat of the Night King months before, there was still a lingering fear of allowing dead men the chance to come back again. 

That fear would last their lifetimes, and even perhaps their children's lifetimes. Bear Island would burn its dead until the horrors this winter had brought became memory as distant as alliances between the Children of the Forest and the First Men. Even then…well, if Lyanna had her way, the House of Mormont would never be foolish enough to trust that winter was _ever_ at an end. 

Not even when the waters in the Bay of Ice sparkled in their deep summer blue silks once more. 

_Winter is always coming._ She thought, echoing Ned Stark's favorite words in her head, adding her own dour observation. _Even when you're in the midst of it._

Her breath was white against the hillside, even gathered inland as they were, blocked from the sea wind by a cut of black ravine and a thick patch of evergreens between them and the coast. The forest splayed out from the Island's interior with long, curling fingers and root systems that went deep underground. The trees shivered in this weather, the occasional snap of branches in the woods too like the brittle break of white bones.

If the old forest groaned on winter's gnawing bite, how would they survive it? The trees lived the lives of ten men and saw winter after winter come and go. But this one felt different. The air was chilled to the point of a knife blade. Without Theon's funeral pyre, they couldn't stay out in it for long without risking frostbite and exposure.

And no one knew how long this winter would last. Not Maester Morlan, who gave Lyanna the hypothesis of Old Town maesters who had spent most of their lives in summer, feasting on wine and sunshine. Not the girls in her kitchens, who quoted their grannies old sayings and looked for signs in the movement of birds and insects ("kill a red spider in the cupboard and you'll add two years to winter"). 

The skies had settled in for a long season, turning stormy at the slightest provocation. The heavens dressed in slate blue and dark violet too often. The sun's rays were too weak and distant to cut the cold and did little more than light up the white flecks that easily fell from every passing cloud. Even now, as the flames consumed Theon's funeral pyre, Lyanna noticed little pieces of ash rise into a sky cluttered up with tiny spits of snow. 

Jorah and Daenerys spoke quietly to each other as they watched Theon burn. Daenerys's face was hidden deep in her furs as Jorah bent towards her to hear her hushed words. The dragon queen had grown up in far warmer climates than these and Lyanna was surprised she'd stayed more than a few minutes at the pyre. Even the Northerners were struggling to keep their teeth from chattering in the deep freeze. 

Lyanna refused to shiver in the cold but she felt it cut into her lungs and spread through her veins like frost over a window pane, testing her Northern blood and daring it to break. She wouldn't break for a long time yet. She was the She-Bear of Bear Island, not some Dorne princess. Or some Targaryen creature that would be better off seeking out landscapes of fire.

As she watched Jorah and Daenerys together, she tried to hold fast to the anger that she first felt, all those years ago, when word reached Bear Island that Jorah had cast his lot with the exiled Targaryen princess, aiding her quest to reclaim her father's throne, giving her counsel, finding her armies and cavorting with dragons.

Maege, Lyanna's mother, had looked at the scroll that carried the news and shook her head from side to side, lips pursed with her favorite expression, a growling glower. 

_The most disgraceful Mormont in a hundred years_ , her mother had said, setting aside the parchment with a sigh. And Lyanna, too young to know any different, just nodded along with her sisters.

It was her mother's words and her mother's disappointment that she was attempting to keep alive. She was self-aware enough to know that part of that stemmed from wanting to keep her mother alive as well. 

She wasn't succeeding. Her mother's voice faded in her head daily. Her sisters' faces receded to the graves of hazy memory with an ease that shouldn't be allowed.

The gods were cruel—to give mothers and sisters and then steal them back again. 

As Daenerys and Jorah settled into contemplative silence, Lyanna found her gaze lingering, not on her cousin this time, but on his silver-haired lady. For beneath her fur-trimmed hood, Daenerys's eyes had flickered from the flames to Lyanna. 

The two women faced each other over the dead man's pyre, through a small swirling of snow and ash. No one gathered to send the dead man off witnessed the moment that followed. Not even Jorah, his attention now back on the fire that consumed Theon's mortal flesh.

But it was a long moment, violet eyes met by dark brown ones. Daenerys wouldn't be able to read Lyanna's thoughts. 

_She's not a damn sorceress…_ Lyanna gave her that at least. Though, even if she was, could a sorceress read thoughts that Lyanna hadn't quite parsed out herself?

Daenerys was not old enough to be her mother…or maybe just. She was older than Lyanna's sisters had been and twice Lyanna's age. She had seen things and done things that Lyanna would never understand. She didn't want to understand—the great houses played at games that raised them up to lofty perches and cast them down into pits of despair. These were not games that Lyanna played or would ever play.

But perhaps Daenerys had never _wanted_ to play them either. 

Seeing her here, in Mormont furs and a swirl of winter snow, she seemed almost one of them. She was still a stranger to these shores and had been among them not even a year. And yet, she stood beside Jorah as if she'd stood beside him all her life. 

If Jorah belonged here… _which he does_ , Lyanna couldn't deny it. _The Island itself would embrace him even if I didn't._ Well, if Jorah belonged here, there was no question that Daenerys belonged here too, despite Maege's voice in Lyanna's head insisting otherwise. 

_She's a Targaryen. They are creatures of fire. They cannot help but bring destruction in their bloody wake._

_She's tired, Mother. And broken and sad and looking for peace. As I am. As we all are._

_She needs to go. Bear Island suffers no conquerors to plant themselves within our borders. Kings and queens belong to the South._

_There are no kings and queens left. And the only thing she's conquered is your nephew's heart…_

_And maybe your own?_ In her mother's imagined voice, she heard the lift of tone, the arch of eyebrow. The questions that followed were heavily skeptical, nearly mocking—do you imagine in this exiled princess you will find the mother and sisters you lost? That the House of Mormont will no longer echo with the ghosts of dead men and women but the vibrant voices of the living? 

_Don't be stupid._ Lyanna replied to her inner voice, in a tone that would convince anyone…except maybe herself. 

Daenerys lowered her eyes finally, adjusting her furs to further cover her face against another breath of freezing air that slid down the icy hillside. Without removing his gaze from the fire, Jorah inched closer to Daenerys on instinct, raising his arm to allow her to step into his embrace, where she finally hid her face from the cold winds completely, head buried in the fabric of his coat. 

Lyanna's men shuddered at the wind's bite but Lyanna still refused to shiver, despite the frost fingers crawling up her spine. She'd lost enough self-respect for one day in contemplating a tolerance for dragons. She certainly wouldn't let the weather take the rest.

After Theon's pyre burned down to ash, they returned to the warmth of the Keep.


	29. Brienne

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, since I didn't have time to post an update last week – you're getting a double feature weekend! 
> 
> First up, Brienne's chapter. Brienne/Jaime shippers, I've gone full on rip-your-heart out here. Sorry! I love this ship, I promise. And ever since I killed off Jaime in Chapter 2, I've been regretting it. Buuuuuut also…tragic sadness is one of my favorite emotions to write (I know, I know, there's something wrong with me haha). But hopefully the flash backs give you a little something to enjoy :) 
> 
> Also, no promises, but you may get some short Brienne/Jaime fics with _happy_ endings from me in the future. Not in this fic, obviously, but I'm not done with these two yet. ;)
> 
> A second, longer chapter (Daenerys) will be posted tomorrow. A bientot! Xo

**_Brienne_ **

_Several months later_

The child was born with golden hair. With Brienne of Tarth as his mother and Jaime Lannister as his father, there really wasn't any other possibility.

But still, a flood of tears blurred Brienne's vision as she beheld her son for the first time, catching sight of that head of golden hair as the midwife gently cleaned and swaddled the child. Brienne closed her eyes as she fell back against the birthing bed, exhausted. But Jaime's smirking face was there, hiding behind her eyelids, waiting for her, as always.

He could be so tender and kind, _honorable_ even, far more than he himself ever realized. But it was the cocky, smirking, self-loathing Jaime Lannister that always seemed to come back to her, teasing her with his ghostly presence, as if he might walk through that pine door across the room and say with a heavy, tut-tutting sigh,

_Brienne, my lady, you look just awful…_

But then his smirk would melt into a sad smile—her joy his happiness, her pain like a shard of glass in his flesh—and he'd come to the bed and brush back the strands of her sweat-soaked hair with his good hand, whispering all those words of love and affection that her teenage self would never have imagined hearing from any man ever, not even in her wildest dreams.

_It's yours. It's always been yours._

He hadn't been talking about the sword. He admitted as much to her at White Harbor, when they lingered after dinner at that seaside inn, waiting for the other to take their leave, give a respectful nod in parting and go to bed. They were soldiers, finally fighting on the same side. That should have been enough. But Brienne was too glad to see him, alive and finally out of Cersei's grasping, greedy clutches. 

And Jaime had loved Brienne for such a long time.

_You are everything I wish I could have been_ , he smirked again and winked at her, hiding his deeper feelings behind irreverence and gloomy pride in his past sins and failures, before taking a long drink from his tankard of ale.

She waited until he placed the mug down again on the rough-hewn planks between them. She had looked at him severely, her sapphire blue eyes sparking with too much feeling as she said, _You are not what they say you are._

_How do you know?_ He wondered, the old cockiness only vaguely remembered in his tone. _Can you read a man's soul, Brienne?_

_No_ , she'd answered, and maybe she should have left it at that. Who's to know if it would have made a difference? But she was always too brave, and in that moment, too pleased with his presence—in the North, in White Harbor, with her. She added softly, _But I can read yours, Jaime._

And there was nothing to be done after that but go to bed. The food was finished, the tankards were dry. It was late enough that the innkeeper was only half-awake and his silence was further sealed by a handful of Lannister silver, placed near the innkeeper's drooping head by Jaime's gold-plated hand on his way by. His other hand was occupied, creeping down the small of Brienne's back, gently leading her from the dining room up the rickety stairs to a soft mattress and a night that could not be taken back.

Some nights leave no trace but memory and this one might have too…if it weren't for the healthy cries of a golden-haired baby boy, breathing in his first lungfuls of air in the upper halls of Greywater Watch.

"He's strong," the midwife declared in a cheery tone, turning the child first to Brienne and then towards a watchful Meera Reed, who stood nearby, making sure her father's guest was well tended to. Stretching his arms, the child gripped the midwife's hand with his tiny fingers. "See how he wraps his hand around my thumb? As if he was gripping the hilt of a sword." 

"Some are born to it," Meera replied, casting a glance at Brienne, hoping to cheer the woman with a subtle nod to the child's heritage—before they took his sword hand, Jaime Lannister was the greatest swordsman of his generation, and Brienne had held her own against him. Everyone knew the story. Jaime was too fond of telling it, pride coloring his features as he spoke of Brienne's near triumph against him at the stone bridge.

_She had me at her mercy before Bolton's men interrupted us._ He told the story at Winterfell at least three times.

_Your hands were bound._ Brienne always made excuses.

But each time, he turned to her to insist, _You had me at your mercy._

And he wasn't talking about only the bridge.

How could that be though? She wondered and continued wondering. How had she, Selwyn Tarth's beast of a daughter, swayed Jaime Lannister's heart so fully? All her life, she'd been cursed to love beautiful men. But she learned quickly that those men were not for her. And she learned that beautiful features could turn ugly and spiteful, angelic faces contorted into smug, painful glares that said as plain as anything: _You honestly thought you had a chance with me?_

In Renly's service, she never expected anything more than a place in his king's guard. Having grown up with the most base of insults and jeers, she was just pleased that he didn't laugh at her. 

Renly never laughed at her, especially not when he was dying in her arms.

She'd become cold and hard to ideas of attraction and love. She wasn't dazzled by Jaime Lannister's smirk when Catelyn Stark turned him over to her custody. At least, not in any way that would stick. He was the Kingslayer and a prisoner of the house she swore oaths to. 

And anyway, he talked too much. 

During the first weeks they traveled together, she ignored his goading taunts with ease, having heard all his insults many, many times before from all those boys and men who frequented her father's halls, when she was still a young girl and careless words cut as sharp as steel daggers. 

Something changed. She couldn't fix the exact hour when it happened and she would never understand it, not until the day she died. But there was a time when she looked up into Jaime Lannister's pretty features and saw him looking back at her with a simple, all-consuming adoration that the gangly, unloved girl she had once been was too afraid to believe was real. 

She would never fully accept it as real. Not even with Jaime's child, _her_ child, placed in her arms.

Meera Reed watched as Brienne looked down at her son, her forefinger stroking the smooth, soft skin of the baby's cheek. Meera ushered the midwife out of the room quickly, with a parting word of discretion. The midwife didn't know the identity of the woman she attended, nor of the child's father. The Reeds would make sure it stayed that way.

Tyrion had been right. Greywater Watch kept its secrets to itself.

"He's beautiful, Lady Brienne," Meera commented as she stepped back in the room. They had spoken few words over Brienne's reason for coming here. Even less on the topic that continued renewing the wash of tears in Brienne's eyes, blurring her view of her son's face with a gleam of saltwater.

_You weep like a bloody woman_ , Jaime's ghost teased her still, that smirk firmly in place.

In life, she could give it back to him just as easily. But she was too tired and the only thought that filled her head was a sad, hollow one, _Jaime, I miss you so…_

Meera couldn't know the thoughts that Brienne lingered on, but she could guess.

"My father will be glad to hear the sound of a newborn's cry," Meera said brightly, but also somewhat timidly. The swamp girl could read a room well enough. Brienne's grief cast a long, dark shadow over the moment. The room was nearly swallowed by it. Meera thought only to draw her attention away from sadness as she continued, "I don't believe a child's been born in this house since Jojen…"

Of course, at the mention of her brother's name, Meera's features darkened by a degree as well. 

Brienne wasn't the only one with ghosts. Winter was full of them. In every kingdom, in every home.

Admirable as they may be, Meera's efforts to bring a little happiness to the moment fell flat and she didn't try again.

The baby was more successful, new and fresh to the world, his cries quickly quieting as he caught sight of his weary mother. Blinking up with blue, sapphire eyes, the baby yawned once and soon settled in her arms.

Just like his father, he coaxed a smile from Brienne without even trying.


	30. Daenerys

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys, you guys! This is Chapter 30!! Wha-aaaat? How did we get to Chapter 30?? 
> 
> I shouldn't be so surprised, I guess. Hypothetically, I think I could write Jorah/Dany forever, though on this particular story I think we've got about 10-11 chapters left - don't be sad, I have lots more ideas for Jorah/Dany fics :)
> 
> This chapter is for ALL my lovely Jorah/Dany shippers but also special shout outs to MormontofRivia and @JessicaTooze - let's call this a belated birthday present for both of you. :) :) :) 
> 
> Mwah!

**_Daenerys_ **

_Dreams are like snowflakes dissolving in water…_

"Enjoying yourself, little sister?"

Daenerys turned from where she leaned against the alabaster ledge above the massive ballroom, where the sweet fragrance of summer bouquets and Dornish spices filled the air, mixing with laughter and the chatter of those below. She expected Viserys, with his sharp words and disapproving glares. She had hoped he wouldn't notice her absence from the crowd downstairs for a while longer, as she was content to watch the lords and ladies dancing from up here, where she felt safe and hidden from view.

Like a dragon perched up on the cliff side, watching, waiting, not wanting to be on display.

For Viserys loved putting his only sister on display. He loved showing off her silver hair and violet eyes, the telltale signs of her Targaryen blood line. What a price she could fetch with such features. He'd tell her to spin around slowly, showing the interested party all facets.

_So many facets. Spin them around until you see yourself…_

Daenerys blinked. Oh, but the silver-haired man walking towards her wasn't Viserys at all. It was Rhaegar who approached her hiding spot. Her ready frown loosened and her lips curved into a smile instead. Her oldest brother, in his kingly robes and crown of gold dragons, answered her warm smile with one of his own.

"You should be downstairs dancing," Rhaegar told her, but in an affectionate tone that held none of Viserys's incessant scolding. His voice was smoother than Viserys's too, with a honeyed tone made for singing. 

"My dancing partner isn't here," she reminded him, touching a small, silver bear pendant at the wrist of her sleeve absently. Where was Jorah anyway? She'd been waiting here for some time. 

_You sent him away, don't you remember?_

_Yes, but he said he'd come back. He always comes back._

"Viserys does not approve of your choice," Rhaegar cautioned with a sly raise of his eyebrow. "A Northerner, Daenerys?"

"You're one to judge," she chided him good-naturedly. 

He accepted the teasing with a grin, but continued, almost insisting, "It's a joyful day. The Usurper is dead and our family has taken back what's ours."

"In fire and blood," Daenerys muttered, sobering quickly, reaching out and tracing the blue threads of one of the embroidered roses gracing the shoulder of his cloak. His young, northern queen, Lyanna Stark, had sewn the roses there herself.

"And by the dance of dragons," Rhaegar reminded her, with the pride of their family's heritage claiming the syllable of every word. "So go dance, Daenerys, and celebrate our victory."

He spoke strong, confident words that she knew should bring her only happiness and contentment. Wasn't this what she'd desired for so long? But there was a chill in his glad tidings that she couldn't quite comprehend. The weather was mild in King's Landing but every once in a while, she felt herself shivering. Her mind was fuzzy and spinning on vague memories of events that had never happened. And then some that had. She brought her hand back from the roses at her brother's shoulder.

She turned her attention back to the dancers below. At first, she recognized none of them—just colors and flash of features with silver hair and violet eyes. The spinning facets of dragons reflected in glass… 

Oh, but as she watched, she recognized faces—some she knew and some she had never met. She saw lords and ladies that had no business being in each other's company. Ned Stark drank ale with Robert Baratheon. Ashara Dayne accepted a bouquet of white lilies from Barristan Selmy's hands. Missandei and Greyworm whispered to each other softly by vine-decorated pillars. Olenna Tyrell was sitting on a rose-colored cushion, surrounded by her pretty granddaughters. Prince Oberyn Martell and Ellaria Sand danced with Southern skill and grace, the orange and red fabric of Ellaria's silk and satin dress swirling around them like a burning sunset.

_Spinning, spinning, spinning…_

"They're all dead," Daenerys straightened up at the sudden realization. Cold dread rippled in her breast as she looked at her brother Rhaegar. She finished up with words she knew she should keep to herself, "And so are you."

"It's a joyful day," Rhaegar repeated, his smile lessening by a degree. "Don't spoil it."

" _You_ spoiled it—a long, long time ago," Daenerys answered in tandem, too bluntly, the memory of Rhaegar's actions spilling back into her head like beads in a jar. She mused softly, "You would have been a good king, I think. You could have calmed the voices in father's head and he would have stepped aside for you. I would have grown up in these halls with your own sweet children. Elia would have taught me how to arrange my hair like a Dornish woman. And perhaps Viserys would have had the recognition he needed. But none of that happened, Rhaegar." 

She looked between him and the dance floor below, whispering, "None of this is real." 

Rhaegar's smile melted away slowly, his handsome features becoming hard and vulpine. Now the brotherly resemblance to Viserys became unmistakable. 

"Be careful, little sister…"

"Your children were murdered," she remembered that part too clearly, too miserably. "So were mine. All because you ran away with the Stark girl."

"A dragon cannot be killed," Rhaegar insisted, though without any confidence. And Daenerys knew better. Viserion had plunged into a frozen lake above the Wall and drowned. He was twice dead, having plummeted with Rhaegal from the skies above Winterfell with howling screams. Both dead, both gone forever.

In the dream, Daenerys covered her ears as the screams of her dying dragons echoed off the strings of the musicians' lyres and harps, down below, where the dead kept dancing.

"You've woken the dragon, haven't you?" Rhaegar's smile twisted into a sneer. As did his face, which sharpened, features traded for Viserys's after all. Now it was Viserys who reached out and seized her arm roughly.

His ghostly touch felt too real, too familiar. She suddenly doubted herself. What was dream and what was reality? She couldn't tell. She was tempted to cower. She felt tears flood her vision, turning the dream landscape hazy and unclear. 

"He's no dragon, _Khaleesi_ ," Jorah's voice brought everything back into focus. She felt his familiar presence before she saw him. He appeared at her side on the balcony, sword hand ready on the hilt at his belt but waiting for her command. He was wearing the same clothes that he used to wear in Essos, that old yellow shirt peeking out from under his black tunic and Eastern armor. Looking down, she found herself in Dothraki leather.

The balcony faded away, with that same gods-awful _spinning_. Snow, sand, frost and leaves. The whisper of words that were written on the canvas of a mottled sky, over and over again.

_When the sun rises in the West and sets in the East..._

When the horrid spinning stopped, she, Jorah and Viserys were in a small clearing of dirt and patches of knotgrass, somewhere deep in the grass jungle on the road to Vaes Dothrak. She knew this place. 

From behind a nearby grove of bamboo shoots, Daenerys heard the sultry voice of Mirri Maz Duur. The woman mocked her. "East for West. North for South. Has the world turned upside-down yet?"

Jorah had always ignored the witch—in life, in death, in dreams. He addressed Daenerys only, continuing calmly, "Viserys is a shadow of a snake. Just shake him off."

So she did. Looking into her silver-haired brother's cruel eyes, she shook off his greedy grasp. His hand fell away so easily and his violet eyes went cold, freezing into twin blue orbs, so like Viserion after he rose from the waters of that lake above the Wall. 

The dream incarnation of Viserys sank to his knees in a ring of blue fire that began to consume him slowly, in a spin of dust and light, nibbling away at his flesh. From somewhere deep in the forest, the witch started cackling.

"Dany!" Viserys begged as he disintegrated to dust. "We were the last dragons!" 

Daenerys shook her head slowly. She couldn't remember the strong words she'd flung back at him when Khal Drogo gave him his golden crown. This time, she stayed silent. She couldn't take her eyes off her brother, even as the ground seemed to shift beneath her.

"Come away, Daenerys," Jorah reached out his hand and she took it immediately. 

The feel of his hand enveloping hers was achingly familiar. Despite the dreamscape, it grounded her and she felt safe again. Even as the world around them began turning, the grass forests shimmering sideways, like dancers in a ballroom, like the grave dust swirling around her brother's ruined features. 

Or like the hot sun above them, dazzling the sky with acrobatics more like a tabletop spinner than an orb in the heavens, rising, setting, spinning. It spun like Ellaria Sand's orange silks. Up was down and down was up. East and West had no claim on the compass anymore.

_When the sun rises in the West and sets in the East._ The witch's words spun too. In her ears, over and over again. _When the sun rises in the West and sets in the East._

Only the clearing remained untouched, grass swirling at her feet like snow drifts. She held tight to Jorah's hand to keep from falling.

_Spinning, spinning, spinning…_

Daenerys woke up with a start. 

In their dark bedroom on Bear Island, she sat up in bed quickly, with a sharp gasp of breath. Her head was cluttered and spinning. Spinning as fast as the unstable world in the dream. _When the sun rises in the West and sets in the East…_

Beside her, Jorah slept soundly, dead tired from a long day spent falling trees in the pine and spruce woods with the other men. His left hand, calloused and blistered from too many hours with an axe, was clasped in her left, grasped in sleep. She must have taken his hand while still in the dream, reaching out for something steady. Though he was still fast asleep, his fingers curled around hers, stroking the knuckles in a soothing caress.

She nearly woke him, but thought better of it. It wasn't a nightmare, not exactly. She'd known it was a dream. She shouldn't feel afraid. And she didn't—no, it wasn't fear. Still, the spinning…

She grimaced, releasing Jorah's hand gently, swinging her legs out from under the warm quilts and slipping off the bed onto the cold, stone floor. Her head wouldn't stop spinning. She felt ill and suddenly, like she might be sick. She steadied herself at the side of the bed, breathing deeply.

Her eyes were closed. The beginning of the dream lingered in her head. Those dancers in the ballroom below. One dance followed by another. All the lords of the realm taking turns asking for their ladies' hands to spin, spin, spin. Oh, but she had to stop… 

Anxious, she rose from the bed and walked the short distance to the tall bedroom window, painted in colors of white frost and black night.

At the window, she lingered, pressing her flushed cheek against the cold, cold stones of the window's frame. The cold calmed her dream-addled mind and the wave of nausea that had overtaken her so swiftly eventually passed. 

She opened her eyes to the winter-white night outside the bedroom window.

The moon perched high in the night sky, like a white raven on silver talons. Unlike the sun, the moon didn't keep to the southern horizon. Its pale glow cast the Island in eerie shades of silver-white.

Outside, everything was cold, everything covered in snow. It was a barren wasteland with no hint of life within. Down by the frozen coast and up on the mountains, the chilled wind blew at the snow drifts like dust and frosted leaves.

_When the sun rises in the West and sets in the East, when the seas go dry and the mountains blow in the wind like leaves…_

_It might as well rise in the West and set in the East, Daenerys thought to herself cleverly. What difference does direction make to a sun that doesn't show itself at all?_

And it was that thought that finally woke her fully and stopped the spinning enough that she could think with some clarity. She opened her eyes widely, blinking the sleep away. For the echo of the witch's words brought with them another thought, a memory of something she hadn't felt in a _very_ long time.

Something she was convinced she would never feel again.

She'd almost forgotten…

A spark of life that wasn't her own. Or, at least, not hers alone. 

With dawning realization, her hands drifted to her abdomen, fingers spreading wide over the fabric of her nightgown and the still flat stomach beneath. 

_It's not possible,_ came Mizzi Maz Duur's sinuous voice in her head. _Only death pays for life and the death of your womb was my price._

Still, Daenerys's hands lingered as she turned back towards their bed, at Jorah sleeping soundly—lost to less violent dreams, she hoped.

_Who's to say what's possible?_ Daenerys answered the witch, but then ignored any other words the dead woman might have to say. Jorah always ignored her, so why shouldn't she?

But _was_ it possible? She thought back. She hadn't had her moon's blood in years so there was no telling in that way. The witch had been so sure and Daenerys never thought to question it before. She'd never conceived with Daario Naharis though she spent enough time in his vainglorious company. 

She rolled her eyes at the fleeting thought of her former paramour and his cocky, grinning self. He'd kissed his favorite knife almost as much as he kissed her.

There it was again. The spark, the fluttering, the innate knowledge that only a mother can describe. It stole her breath away.

Part of her wanted to rush over to Jorah and wake him, with butterfly kisses traced up his jawline until he woke, groggy and wondering why she was wide awake in the middle of the night. 

_Why indeed…_ she thought with wonder and…fear.

Her hands fell away from her waist and then found themselves again, her fingers running over each other as she thought on questions that insisted on spinning through her head. _What if she was wrong? But what if she was right? Did he want to be a father? Did she know how to be a mother? Was a child born in Winter damned before it was born? Was death to come for this one too?_

She shivered, having stood by the cold window for too long. The bitter cold chased away some of the rambling in her head, at least. 

She wouldn't wake Jorah. He was exhausted, having fallen asleep within minutes of his head hitting the pillow. But when she crawled back into bed, she snuggled up against her tired bear. His arm slid around her waist smoothly, even in deep sleep. She couldn't manage a smile, emotions too unraveled by spinning dreams and future unknowns. But she sighed softly as she laid her cheek flush against his broad chest, safe.

Her news would keep. So would the rest.


	31. Jorah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "You are my favorite, favorite thing." –Dodge to Penny in _Seeking a Friend For the End of the World_.
> 
> One of my favorite, favorite lines ever. And always comes into my head whenever I write sweet scenes between meant-to-be, ride-or-die (I'll choose the first option, yes please) couples. Like this couple. And like this chapter. :)
> 
> Enjoy! Xx

**_Jorah_ **

"We won't be gone long," Jorah promised, briefly wondering why his promises weren't working this time. Daenerys had been in an anxious mood all morning, her expression preoccupied and her whims somewhat capricious. Like now, when she insisted she come with him on a hunting trip in the forest.

"It's freezing out, Daenerys," he continued, sliding the blade of his knife along the edge of a whetstone one more time before slipping it into a leather scabbard affixed to his belt. He braced his hands against the edge of the wood table that took center stage in Bear Island's small armory and looked her straight in the eye. He said, "The paths are all snow-covered. We'll be trudging through most of it."

"Then I'll trudge," she answered crisply.

"It's not a pleasure walk," he replied, perhaps with a tone that bordered on patronizing. With too much practice, it was easy enough for him to slip back into the role of advisor, always older and wiser. He didn't mean it that way but he saw her bristle nonetheless. 

"I know that," she snapped back, with a touch of the dragon's bite in her voice. Her violet eyes had turned hard and he realized there was no arguing with her.

Perhaps it was cabin fever or some general restlessness. Winter made them captives in their own home. This was the first day in several where the snows stayed in the sky and the wind didn't attempt to knock down the front gate with its deafening roar or blow through the windows with its frost claws outstretched and ready to tear at wood and stone. The back country of the Island was wilder, colder and frosted twice over but he could understand if she needed a change in landscape. 

"Fine," he relented finally, still too unwilling to deny her _anything_. 

He pushed himself off the table and took two steps towards a row of shields hanging from the eastern wall, the bear emblem of House Mormont painted in green and brown colors upon them. From a barrel sitting beneath the shields, he gathered up a bundle of fletched, iron-tipped arrows for Dafydd Longshaw, one of Lyanna's vanguard, who would be going with them. He pointed the bundle of arrows at Daenerys, forcefully stating, "But you have to tell me if it's too cold for you and we'll turn back."

"I won't be too cold," she said, with defiance. 

Her stance was rigid. She'd been this way all morning—defiant, unsmiling, nearly angry…though he had no idea why, or even if he was the cause of it. If he'd done something that displeased her, he wished she'd just say it outright. 

The evening before, she'd been in a teasing mood, stopping him just outside the dining hall before dinner to stretch up on the toes of her shoes and press a soft, lingering kiss against his cheek.

"What was that for?" he had wondered, bemused. She usually kept her displays of affection to shadowed corridors and the privacy of their bedchamber.

She merely shrugged with a coy smile and said, "Do I need a reason?" before slipping into the dining room and taking her place at dinner.

Then this morning, she'd seemed cold and distant, rising before him, not saying more than two words to him until she came into the armory and said she wanted to go with him and Dafydd into the woods. No, rather, that she _was_ going. She left no room for argument.

He couldn't keep up with her changing moods lately.

"Well, go get dressed," Jorah bade her now, eyeing her silk dress and wool coat critically. "If you don't have at least three layers of furs on, I'm not taking you anywhere."

Her persistent frown finally came loose, though the smile that took its place was all mixture of anxiousness and relief, which were not emotions that a simple walk in the woods should elicit. She seemed out of sorts on all counts and he almost snatched back his words, with an idea that he'd hold them ransom until she explained herself.

But she'd already left the armory to dress and he decided explanations could wait. 

### 

Explanations came soon enough.

Daenerys kept up with the men admirably, breathing in the crisp winter air and taking the labored steps of walking through snow-covered forests in stride. She coughed once on the frigid taste in her lungs, which garnered her a few long looks from Jorah. He asked her three times if she wanted to turn back. Her response was a death stare that shut him up quickly.

Before they left the Keep, he told Dafydd that they would hunt up in the grove of evergreens on the western cliffs where he knew the stronger storm wind had blown the snows down into the valley near Ynes Lyme, one of Bear Island's handful of fishing villages. The walking would be easier and the paths mostly clear. Dafydd agreed, as the animals would likely be seeking out easier walking themselves, as well as whatever plant life they might scrounge up under the more shallow snow drifts. 

They picked out signs of a deer near a narrow, frozen stream at the cut of a low ravine. Jorah pointed out to Daenerys where the ice had been carved at and shattered by hooves, searching and pawing for water beneath. They tracked the animal further inland, until they found a lonely stag on the hills above Ynes Lyme, in a thick grove of white-painted spruce.

The animal was lean and hungry, his antlers white as birch bark and glittering with frost. 

Dafydd was Lyanna's best bowman. Since he was a young boy, he had a habit of touching the fletch of an arrow to his lips before fastening it to the bowstring. It was superstition or compulsion, but either way, it worked. On the moors outside of Winterfell, Dafydd brought down more than his fair share of dead men. He did the same here, drawing out the arrow from the quiver affixed to his back. The red fletch briefly brushed the man's chapped lips before taking its spot on the bow.

Dafydd aimed. Standing nearby, Daenerys, having shied away from Jorah's offered hand all morning, suddenly took his arm. As the arrow found its mark, she turned her face into her bear knight's shoulder, unwilling to watch the death blow.

Jorah's features creased further, his unsettled feelings of the whole morning suddenly heightened. Daenerys Stormborn, the Unburnt, Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons, was not known for being squeamish. Not since she was still a young girl, naïve to all the bloodshed that she'd eventually play witness to.

But perhaps his words from long ago were as true now as all those years ago. He was reminded of them as he turned away from the falling animal, glancing down at Daenerys— _You have a gentle heart, my princess._

The mark was true and pierced the stag's heart. The stag had no time to bleat out a howl of pain or even surprise. He was dead before he hit the snowy, frost-packed ground. He fell with a heavy thud, with wisps of snow thrown up in the air around where he dropped. Pale sunlight through shorn branches glinted off the frost-tipped antlers, blinking out across the twenty yards that separated hunter and prey, to where Dafydd was now lowering his bow. 

"It's over," Jorah said softly. Daenerys peeked out from behind his shoulder. She had grasped his arm with both hands, gloved hands twisted in the heavy fabric at his sleeve. She loosened her grip but didn't quite let go. Looking down at her earnest face, Jorah suddenly realized that her features were much paler than normal, fatigued and peaked. With all those earlier hints of anger now absent, she seemed almost forlorn…and certainly ill.

He cursed himself for not seeing it sooner. If she was sick, she should have said something. And now he had allowed himself to be manipulated into bringing her out into this weather.

"Let me take you back," he begged. "Dafydd can finish here."

"No, he can't carry the stag back alone," she answered, letting go of his arm, defiant once again. This time the defiance was half-hearted and not entirely convincing. Still, she insisted, "I'm fine."

But she wasn't fine.

As soon as Jorah pulled the knife from his belt, kneeling in the blood-stained snow, and making that first cut, letting loose the guts of the stag, all gushing blood and organ meat, Daenerys gave a small groan. She raised her hand to her mouth and, without explanation, she suddenly dashed deeper into the woods. 

"Daenerys!" Jorah called out immediately, quickly rising and handing the knife over to an equally bewildered Dafydd. Jorah shook his head in answer to the man's unasked question, not knowing the answer. Not knowing any answers at present. Deep, dark concern was stealing over his features. 

Leaving Dafydd to finish with the stag, he ran after Daenerys. He caught up with her soon enough, as she had fallen to her knees by a tangled bush of barren shoots and purple twigs, shorn of all its foliage, retching and dry heaving into the frosted underbrush. 

"Daenerys…," he repeated her name, softly this time, going down to one knee beside her and gathering up the strands of her long hair with care, holding it back from her face until she was finished. 

"Here," he took out his flask and handed it to her, while stroking her back gently. She took a small drink, swishing the water in her mouth before spitting it out into the snow, ridding her mouth of the sour taste of vomit. She grimaced and looked like she might be sick again, closing her eyes briefly and reaching out to take his forearm and then the wrist of the hand that had offered her the flask. 

He gave it willingly and felt the pressure of her tight grasp even beneath his leather wrist guards. His other hand wandered from her back, to stroke the rest of her hair behind her ears before coming to rest on her pale, chilled cheek. He gave her time to recover, asking only after she'd steadied herself and opened her eyes to meet his gaze once more, "Are you all right?"

She nodded slowly, but her eyes gave a much different answer. She tried words next with a quiet, "It's nothing," but she didn't convince herself, let alone him. 

He got her to her feet, pulling her up off the cold, frozen ground. The fallen trunk of an ancient white oak tree lay nearby and he led her to it, forcing her to sit on its flat surface before taking his seat beside her. 

"You should have told me you were ill," he chastened her fiercely, but quietly too, too worried to hold onto anger. Sickness in this part of the world, at this time of year, was too often a death sentence. His heart went stone cold at the thought of some unknown plague stealing through his beloved's body. His hand drifted up to her forehead, checking for the heat of fever.

But Daenerys was shaking her head and pulling his hand down already. She was still catching her breath but had turned calm, placid now where she had been anxious and restless all morning.

"No, Jorah. I'm not ill," she replied, something changing in her eyes. A sudden, unexpected tenderness filled the space between them, with her tone of voice and gesture of hand free of all pretense and dripping affection. She brought his hand down from her face and then guided it further, to where she brought it to rest, beneath the cloak and furs to her waistline, a telltale spot that could only mean one thing. 

Her wide, beautiful eyes confessed the rest.

He didn't believe it. Of course, he didn't. He knew what happened to Rhaego and he'd been there with her when Mirri Maz Duur cursed her, standing within earshot. She would never bear a child. That was decided long ago.

"But how…?" he managed, stunned. His mind was barely registering the information.

"I don't know," she replied, with just as much amazement as him. She'd known for some time, that was obvious. But apparently the shock was still fresh. In a small voice, she added, "I wasn't sure at first. I was afraid to believe it, I think, but…"

She met his gaze with a shadow of a smile, gently biting her bottom lip before continuing, her words timid and almost apologetic, "I didn't know how to tell you."

"You didn't have to come all the way out here, love," he muttered, but the chiding was half-hearted, all his own feelings coming undone at the revelation that this woman—his dear, sweet Daenerys—was carrying his child. The simple term of endearment, not something he'd used before, spilled so naturally from his lips, with such truth behind it. And Daenerys's lips parted at it, her breath catching on the word.

She left his hand to linger where their child lay, taking both her hands and bringing them to either side of his bearded face.

"I love you, Jorah," she said with feeling, awash with love for him and needing to give him those three words, _now_ , before any more time passed. 

But he didn't need the words. He never needed the words. All he needed was _her_. 

There was a part of him that couldn't completely banish the foreboding, cruel thoughts that tried for his attention—that she would never bear a living child, that the last time she bore a child, it almost killed her. Beneath her cloak, his large hand spread over her growing womb with a bear's protectiveness. 

_Not this time._ He swore an immoveable oath, closing his eyes and praying to the gods of his forefathers to see them through this unharmed. 

Daenerys could read his thoughts. Her own thoughts had been swayed by the same, accounting for some of the restlessness and anxiousness she'd felt over the past two weeks, as she struggled how to tell him. As she struggled to decide whether the witch still had power here, beyond the grave, at the very other side of the world.

_No, she doesn't._ He could hear Daenerys's thoughts, stronger than his own at present. _The only thing that has power here is my love for you._

Gently, she pulled his forehead down to meet hers. 

"We'll be all right," she whispered, her sweet voice a promise in itself. "All three of us."

"All three of us," he agreed, musing at the strange, wonderful, glorious notion. _All three of us._


	32. Sam

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sam chapter! Because how can anyone do a Game of Thrones fic without a Sam chapter? Dude killed a White Walker a few seasons before anyone else. He gave Gilly his mother's thimble for safekeeping (*heart eyes*). He stole Heartsbane from his awful father. He discovered where the Dragonglass is buried. And, most importantly, he healed (peeled? – oh my god, that was pretty intense) Jorah of greyscale. If that doesn't guarantee him MVP status, I'm not sure what does. #TeamSam
> 
> Real life obligations will prevent me from updating next week *sad face* but I'll be back soon, m'dears. Much love/thanks to all those reading, liking and commenting! :)

**_Sam_ **

"Nightshade, willow, pennyroyal, dahlia root, milk of the poppy…," Sam muttered over the names as he moved from left to right along the narrow shelves of the apothecary's stores in Winterfell. The herbs were housed in glass bottles, some squat and some tall, filled with all varieties of leaves, grounds, powder and colored liquids. 

Sam had a pen and ledger in his hands, as he so often did, this time to take full inventory of Winterfell's medicinal supplies. Sansa had collected much before winter set in and restocked where needed, but she had no maester available to give her a list of what would be in highest demand over a long, cold winter. She guessed well, but they would run out of most if not all by the end, in any case.

"…snakeroot, sage, mandrake, wormwood, tansy, shade of evening—" Sam blinked twice on that one, taking down the cobalt blue bottle and tipping the liquid slightly sideways. It shimmered a little when tilted.

There wasn't much of it left and the bottle was dusty enough that it wasn't one of Sansa's purchases. Old Maester Luwin wouldn't have imbibed such a dangerous drink, would he? Sam had read somewhere that it was favored by the Warlocks of Qarth, turning their lips blue and their minds hazy. He shrugged and replaced the bottle, making a note on his ledger. _Research other uses for shade of evening…_ and took another step to his right.

"Watch out!" Came a little voice from almost directly beneath him. Sam lifted the ledger from under his nose to find Little Sam sprawled on his belly on the floor between the narrow shelves, raising both his little hands in warning. 

Little Sam had a dozen or so tin knights and soldiers set up around him, together with wooden blocks, pine cones, sea stones and other odds and ends that the little four-year-old had collected from various places and which he usually kept in a box of "treasures." Today, he was using the treasures to build a small castle which his tin soldiers could defend…primarily from giants not watching their step.

Sam's foot had nearly knocked over one of Little Sam's towers, with two tin knights on the wooden block wall bracing for impact. 

"Oh, I'm sorry," Sam apologized to his son, side-stepping the minor catastrophe at the last minute. He took a better look at the tower and found his mother's thimble on top of one of Little Sam's towers, acting as a sensible turret.

Little Sam was now staring up at his father with his chin in his hands and a little look that plainly said, "move along."

"I'll just…shall I?" Sam added with a congenial, put upon air of formal court manners, folding his ledger half-closed while shuffling carefully around his son's building space to continue his inventory without destroying the little boy's creation. "Yes, pardon me, Lord Tarly."

With his chin still firmly cradled in his little hands, Little Sam grinned at the last comment and then continued his castle construction.

Sam had to step over Ghost as well, who was always nearby, and this time sprawled on the other side of Little Sam's castle lazily, his nose incorporated as part of the scene, as three tin soldiers had been placed with their tiny tin swords raised against the monster at their gates. A quick snort of breath from Ghost would flatten them easily enough, but the soldiers bravely persevered. And the white direwolf didn't seem to mind their presence, as he was dozing, half asleep.

"And there we go," Sam muttered to himself as he dodged the last of the possible missteps. He had reached the end of the row and leaned back, flipping the ledger open again, to write in the last entries, "…lily of the roadside, rose hips, ginseng, mushroom, isinglass, chamomile and ginger root."

"Ginger root," Little Sam parroted from the floor, as he pushed himself off the floor to walk around to the other side of his castle. He sat down again beside Ghost, squeezing between the wolf and the shelf, propping himself up against the massive direwolf's furry, white foreleg, as he reached across to better position his men against the onslaught that they might soon face…should the tricky direwolf make his inevitable move.

Ghost was now very used to being crawled over and mauled by Little Sam. The boy and the direwolf had been nearly inseparable since the night after the last battle, as Ghost now stayed close to Sam, and Little Sam liked no better company than his father. Which is why Gilly had left the toddler in Sam's care while he spent the early afternoon perusing and taking inventory of the remaining medical supplies in Maester Luwin's old quarters.

Once finished, Sam gingerly stepped back over his son and the wolf—"Yes, not to worry, momentary inconvenience, I promise"—returning to the front of the shelves, where the room opened into an oval-shaped work space, its door open to the stone hall just beyond. 

Sam set his ledger down on a bench cluttered with herb dust and draught residue, half-empty bottles, mortars and pestles. He was still talking to himself, something about "but if we have a case of winter fever we'll go through the whole bottle in a week" while he wandered over to Maester Luwin's bookshelves on the opposite side of the room, searching for a volume that he remembered seeing when he first glanced at these shelves, months and months ago.

"Ah," he said when he found it, slipping the book from the shelf and flipping its old pages with care. The scrolling script on the cover read _A Complete Study on Northern Remedies._

Sam was soon thoroughly engrossed in the book's pages, complete with pen and ink illustrations and Maester Luwin's notes in the margins, and missed the sad but inevitable defeat of Little Sam's tin soldiers. 

Ghost yawned once and shifted his head on his forepaws, knocking both the soldiers and the pine cone gates down accidently. It was a complete massacre. Little Sam's cry of despair was tempered by his natural impulse to accept the inevitable. He took after his mother, Gilly, in this way and cut his losses with impressive patience for a four-year-old, closing his eyes somewhat melodramatically and lying back against the direwolf's furry side with a heavy, little sigh. 

Sam also missed Tyrion entering the room, and the dwarf's amused glance toward Little Sam and the wolf. The little boy was ridiculously small compared to his animal companion, and when he sank against the wolf’s ribs he was almost hidden by the white fur that surrounded him. He remained in a state of despair for only a moment, recovering quickly to begin rebuilding his castle gates, petting Ghost's head softly with one hand while piling up blocks and pine cones with the other.

The direwolf shifted his head slightly, cheek resting against Little Sam's bent knee, fully willing to accept the freely offered scratching.

"I had a dog when I was young too," Tyrion commented on the scene, without precursor, directing his words at the child, but pulling Sam out of his book abruptly in the process. Sam had finally learned his lesson about ignoring someone’s words for the pages of a book—Gilly rarely let him forget it. Tyrion continued, "But he was about ten sizes smaller than yours."

The boy smiled a small smile, too quiet and shy around strangers to say anything back. Although, Tyrion wasn't really a stranger now. Winterfell was too small to keep any of them strangers for long. But still, Gilly taught her son caution above all else—caution, silence and self-reliance. 

The smiling was something he'd learned from Sam.

"Ghost is…well, he's a beast really," Sam said, lowering _A Complete Study of Northern Remedies_ , with his forefinger marking his page as a makeshift bookmark. He continued, as was his habit, as if they had been talking on the subject for some time, musing aloud, "Even for a direwolf, he's quite large. And to think he began as the runt of the litter—that's something isn't it? I suppose starting small doesn't mean you'll necessarily stay that way."

"Some of us don't grow at all, Maester Tarly," Tyrion replied dryly.

"Oh!" Sam suddenly realized how his comment fell on the Imp's ears and chattered on with a flood of quick apologies, ending with, "I meant no offense, Lord Tyrion."

"None taken," Tyrion assured him immediately, his tone losing most of its natural facetiousness. Samwell Tarly, in his bumbling, good-natured presence, tended to bring out the sincerity in everyone around him. Without his usual snark, Tyrion seemed at a loss for words.

"Was there something you needed, my lord?" Sam prodded, kindly. The boy and the wolf were watching the dwarf with mild interest as well.

"The Winterfell glass houses…," Tyrion began, perhaps to comment on their near non-existence. The main glass house had been heavily damaged by Viserion’s attack on Winterfell and Ramsay Bolton’s ill-fated tenancy of the castle before that. The Boltons were not the type to encourage cultivation and growth and the winter gardens were left to go fallow. Tyrion finished simply, “I’ve decided to take up gardening.”

_In the middle of winter?_ Sam waited for a clever comment but none came. Tyrion just nodded. He was serious. 

“In the middle of winter,” Sam repeated the words aloud, with sudden, wide-eyed excitement, wondering why he hadn’t thought of repairing the glass houses himself. Sure, much of the glass in the main house had been destroyed but the smaller glass houses were still intact and they could salvage the surviving panes from the others and rebuild on a smaller scale. Winterfell was home to far less residents now than in its heyday and every little bit helped. Why, they could grow any number of herbs, vegetables, even flowers…Sam turned towards Maester Luwin’s bookshelves once more, glancing over its contents with a librarian’s eye for useful titles.

“Here we are,” he said with a grin, as he slipped _Winter Botany_ from the shelf to join _A Complete Study of Northern Remedies_ in his arms, shrugging his big shoulders. “I always find if you start with a book, everything else seems to fall into place…”

While he rebuilt his garrison of tin soldiers, Little Sam nodded along with his father's immutable wisdom.


	33. Daenerys

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know what? I'm dangerously close to falling back into that old habit (7 seasons of habit) of believing that D&D might actually deliver good, angst-heavy closure for the Jorah/Dany ship in S8. I mean, it could happen, right? _Riiiiiiight_? Haha well, that's what this fic is for…to help me through the dark times to come.
> 
> Also, I have a "deleted scene" fic on my list. You'll know what I'm talking about when you get to the end of this chapter.
> 
> As always, thanks for the love, m'dears! :)

**_Daenerys_ **

A few fishermen from Ynes Lyme had brought news from the western bays. One of the boys had been out trapping on the shoreline and saw a speck on the horizon. A spyglass confirmed the presence of a marauding Greyjoy ship on the open waters, flying the Kraken flag high on their frosted mast. The sea ice kept them far from Bear Island's shores but the mere sighting said as much as Theon had tried to spit out before the end—Euron Greyjoy would not be spending the winter in quiet prayer and contemplation. 

The fishermen from Ynes Lyme were to give a full account to Lyanna as soon as possible. Maester Morlan bid the yeoman take seats in the Great Hall while they waited, while fluttering about in his chains and robes, simultaneously sending Mary, the servant girl, to fetch Captain Claver and bring him hence. 

He then made his way to where Jorah and Daenerys lingered by the stone fireplace, having been called to this meeting as well. Maester Morlan gave a quick, respectful nod to Jorah. The knight remained standing with his hand curled around the brace of Daenerys's chair. Jorah rarely left Daenerys's side these days. 

It was no great secret why, though the other residents of the Keep had only been recently made aware of the reason, after Lyanna bluntly asked the question that no one else would dare ask.

"Are we supposed to pretend that the curve of your belly is a result of too many lemon cakes?" Lyanna wondered aloud to Daenerys, no more than a week ago. 

Since Lyanna rarely spoke to Daenerys directly, the words appeared to echo off every stone in the old castle. A pin drop could be heard in the sharp silence that followed. Caught off guard, Daenerys failed to form a reply before the little she bear continued, sniping almost too cleverly, "Because we don't have any lemon cakes on Bear Island."

Daenerys's words melted into a huff of something between surprise and indignation. Her hands unconsciously went to the swell of her growing child, unwittingly confirming Lyanna's suspicions. Though there was no confirmation needed. The child grew daily and the girls in the kitchen had been talking about Lord Jorah getting Daenerys with child as fact for weeks.

_I just wonder how it didn't happen sooner_ , was one of many comments that Daenerys had overheard…and, to be fair, she couldn't disagree with their gossipy musings. 

"Lyanna…," Jorah cautioned with a sigh, hearing the biting accusation behind the young, dark-haired woman's words and knowing too well the source of it.

"And you," Lyanna turned on her cousin with towering disdain. She had to look up almost two feet to meet his gaze but that was nothing for steely Lyanna Mormont. She tipped her head, "You sire a bastard child with a Targaryen? Is this how you intend to bring honor to the House of Mormont?"

"Enough, Lyanna," Jorah replied, gruffly but with patience. He gave his little cousin deference in all things but this. Where Daenerys was concerned, he wouldn't hear her prejudice or disapproval. Daenerys remained silent, as had become habit, letting Jorah handle his cousin. There were hot words primed on her lips, ready to be unleashed, but she kept them back—first, because she didn't care what Lyanna thought of her. It couldn't be worse than what she thought of herself, at times.

_Daenerys Stormborn, Queen of Regrets…_

But second, and more importantly, she didn't answer Lyanna because she was distracted. At Jorah's command to his cousin, the baby kicked, for the very first time. A soft "oh" escaped Daenerys's lips, as she laid her hand over the spot and was rewarded with a second, small kick.

At her quiet "oh", Jorah had turned from Lyanna and was watching Daenerys curiously. Her sudden grin chased away the tenseness in the chamber and she immediately reached for him, beckoning him near and bringing his hand down to join hers, where their child continued to assert its existence.

They met each other's gaze with silence, hands joined on her belly.

Lyanna muttered a little more, shaking her head, before leaving them. The rest of the castle soon joined in her knowledge, albeit with far happier inclinations towards the impending event than their mistress.

A child born in winter? A child with the blood of bears and dragons, with a wise father and a loving mother? Oh, there were far worse things to contemplate. 

In the Great Hall, Maester Morlan now regarded Daenerys with close attention, fussing over her like an old nurse, and wondering after her general health and the health of the child. He felt useful in this, far more useful than in attending Lyanna, who was _never_ ill and rarely needed his assistance. Daenerys seemed glad to receive his inquiries, answering simply, "I'm well, Maester."

"The child has settled? Not still plaguing you with running after the nearest chamber pot, I hope?" the maester raised a bushy, grey eyebrow.

Daenerys paused at that. She looked at Jorah before answering and saying only, "Not as often."

It was different this time, than with Rhaego. Harder in some ways, easier in others. 

But maybe that was to be expected—she had been _so_ young with Rhaego, caught up in a spell of promises shouted out by Khal Drogo, as he roused the hoard with his speech around the fires of Vaes Dothrak. She could remember the feelings of pride and rapture as she listened to him—her sun and stars conjured a fire deep in her belly as he swore their son would be _The Stallion Who Mounted the World_ , seizing his mother's birthright back from those who had stolen it away. 

But she had been looking for vengeance then. Khal Drogo's strength of will and fiery words had confused her. She thought his promises would last, where Viserys's went sour. 

Thinking back on it now, she wondered if it wasn't all folly from the beginning. Did Jorah know where that path would lead them? Did he try to warn her, with his customary caution and patience? Or was he caught up in the myth too, watching her eat that horse's heart whole with pride swelling in his chest? 

The past was the past and she didn't linger on it long. But, with no choice in the matter, she grimaced at the memory of that horse's heart and its iron, raw taste rolling around in her mouth. 

In the early weeks of this pregnancy, the mere memory of the heat of Essos, the buzz of flies, the smell of the Dothraki tents with their freshly tanned hides—oh, this baby had no love for those memories and sent Daenerys's head spinning and her queasy stomach churning every time she was reminded of it.

Like its father, this was a child of the North. In every possible way. And each time a cold draft blew through the old castle halls, Daenerys felt a shiver, not of cold, but of that small, other life that grew inside her body—fluttering, forming, growing. It was the cold that soothed Daenerys, chasing away the nausea and unsettled feelings with its fresh, unspoiled scent. 

The night before, she again stood before the frosted window of their bed chamber, restless, looking out on the dark, quiet night, listening to the sea winds howl against the snowy shores. She didn't notice that she was cold or that her skin had turned icy until she felt Jorah's arms slide around her from behind. His embrace enveloped her snugly, with one arm wrapping around her swollen waist and the other sliding beneath her breasts, with her own arms rising up to rest on his strong forearms.

His lips found her collarbone on the right side, as he murmured at her ear with some chastening, "Your skin is chilled. You shouldn't stand at a cold window, _Khaleesi._ "

"Your child likes the cold, my lord," she murmured back, tipping her head leftward to expose her neck further to his warm caress. His lips left a trail of fire on her cold skin, as always. She turned into his kisses, as soft clay in his arms, her hands gliding to the sides of his face and then up to run through his sandy-colored hair. Her mouth opened against his and they deepened the kiss slowly—the thrill of his kiss mixing now with the flutter of his child. 

She craved nothing so well as him, now more than ever. And when his lips left her mouth to trail up to her temple, whispering, "Come back to bed, Daenerys…" she nodded with no argument, her arms folding around his neck lithely. He gathered her up in his arms in one, smooth motion, carrying her back to the bed, where they resumed all those deep, slow, hot caresses that the midnight hours were fashioned for.

The baby may prefer the cold, but its mother was still a creature of fire.

The memory of the night before was only hours old, and Daenerys had to bite her lip to keep from grinning over it, like a swooning, love-struck teenager. The pregnancy only heightened her already ardent feelings and here, in the Great Hall, she let her hand drift up to where Jorah gripped the back of her chair, her fingers lightly dancing over his knuckles in a wholly discreet but also wholly seductive manner.

Jorah's hint of smile, when he side-eyed her and her misbehaving caress said he guessed her thoughts…and approved.

Lyanna finally arrived, though she said they would wait for Seffius, whose delay lasted only a few minutes more. The captain entered, with Mary following him in, on hurried footsteps, attempting to keep up with the man's much longer stride. 

"You may proceed," Lyanna instructed her maester as she took her seat at the center of the long table. 

Maester Morlan then introduced the fishermen and the full account of the Greyjoy ship was given—when it was last seen, how many times it had appeared on the horizon and the likelihood of it making landfall. The fishermen were Northerners. Their words were short and to the point, expressing facts and little else, leaving conjecture and the rest of it to the highborn and soldiers in the hall.

"What do they expect to gain from a raid?" Lyanna mused, contempt for the Ironborn in every word—they were selfish, greedy and brazen. Brazen like Krakens of the deep. "We were poor in riches before and even more so now."

"If they come, they'll try for Ynes Lyme first," Jorah mentioned darkly. "The west side of the peninsula is away from the sea winds. If there's any sort of thaw, the ice will break free easily enough."

"Lord Jorah's right about that, milady," one of the fishermen, a grizzled old man with sea-cracked hands and a hoarse voice, spoke up to confirm Jorah’s words. 

"Ynes Lyme has been a favorite raid for the Ironborn since before any of us were born," Maester Morlan's advice echoed the rest.

"Theon Greyjoy died on our shores months ago. Winter shows no signs of letting up and the Island has been locked in ice since the first storms. You would think they would stay home and seek survival," Lyanna mentioned. "As the rest of us do." 

"Euron Greyjoy has an appetite for violence. The season doesn't matter to him," Seffius Claver advised his young mistress, his feelings on the pirate transparent. "He'll come." 

"Too bad your dragon has decided to sleep the winter away," Lyanna grumbled to Daenerys. "Do you think we could rouse him long enough to burn the Greyjoys?" 

"Drogon's tired of battles and war," Daenerys answered, knowing her reply applied to many in the hall, herself included. She shook her head, doubtful, "I don't know that he would listen to my commands even if I begged."

"Perhaps he knows that you've replaced him," Lyanna replied sharply, the strain of winter and the damn Ironborn causing her to look for an easy mark to vent her frustration. "Mother of Dragons, no longer? Perhaps 'Mother of Bastards' is more appropriate…" 

"Enough, Lyanna!" This time Jorah's voice held all the timbre of his father, Jeor Mormont, the Old Bear, and the walls of the Mormont Keep shuddered on the familiar, grave-dark tone. Daenerys's eyes immediately darted to Jorah, as did the rest gathered in the Great Hall. 

Lyanna blinked, astonished. Lyanna never blinked. 

Jorah continued, his infinite patience returning swiftly. Still, he was adamant, "Enough. Our child is no bastard, cousin. Daenerys is my wife and has been for some time."

He reached down and took Daenerys's hand in his, squeezing her palm slightly. She was pleased. Not so much for the revelation that would finally silence Lyanna's chiding—though there was that, as well—but rather, for his mere touch. At its father's strong voice, the baby had moved in her womb yet again, and she was grateful for the firm steadiness of Jorah's hand, as the otherworldly feeling of the child within her was anything but steady.

"It's true," Seffius Claver spoke from the other side of the hall, nodding. "I married them myself, not long after Theon's death." 

Beside Seffius, Mary showed no surprise—as she had been their witness, her dark brown eyes willingly taking on secrets. She met Daenerys's gaze now, as she had when the Silver Queen had first walked into the kitchens months ago and shyly asked if she might knead some bread dough. She gave Daenerys a small, encouraging smile.

But Maester Morlan looked utterly taken aback. The fishermen tried to pretend they weren't eavesdropping on a conversation they had no business taking part in, with little success. Lyanna narrowed her eyes. 

Of course, they hadn't told her—Daenerys insisted Jorah didn't breathe a word of it—thinking Lyanna would be happier not knowing that a Mormont had bound himself forever to a Targaryen. It might even give the she-bear a little peace, thinking Daenerys might be a passing fancy of her wayward cousin and that someday, somehow, he might come to his senses. 

"You married her," Lyanna stated flatly, the implications sinking in. "Without my permission."

"We didn't need your permission," Jorah replied. "And you wouldn't have given it."

Lyanna looked between them both. Daenerys wondered if the relief she saw pass by the girl's dark brown eyes was just her imagination. But she'd seen that look before, in the few, sparse moments when she'd thought that maybe, just maybe, Lyanna might not only accept her presence on Bear Island…but welcome it.

A Mormont bastard would bring shame to this ancient House. But a Mormont heir? Even with Targaryen blood tainting its Northern heritage, Lyanna couldn't be completely unpleased by the news. 

Daenerys had lived in this house long enough to know that Lyanna wasn't all stone and ice.

The young woman didn't give up her feelings so easily and moved on from Jorah's revelation seamlessly, dragging her attention away from her cousin and Daenerys—his _wife_ , the mother of his trueborn child—turning back to Seffius Claver once more.

"Station scouts at Ynes Lyme, day and night. If the pirate comes to Bear Island, we'll give him a fight he won't soon forget."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yes or no to the "Jorah and Daenerys marry in secret" deleted scene fic? I assume the answer is yes ;)


	34. Jorah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The tone of this chapter is kinda bittersweet but writing it reminded me (again) of how much I love Bear Island. But I'm a river/sea girl in real life so it makes sense that I'm drawn to an island landscape. Add to that a stoic, grim people who are all like "f*ck you we know no king but the king in the north whose name is Stark" and anyway…this is my House. These are my people :) #bearsarebest #TeamMormont

**_Jorah_ **

When he was a young boy, Jorah remembers going down to the Mormont crypts more than once to seek out his father. Jeor frequented the crypts back then, sharing too much company with the flickering torchlight, damp stones and musty old tombs. 

His father had a favorite among the graves, of course, and lingered near it. No one frequents a crypt without a reason.

Jorah's mother was buried down there. 

She'd joined the dearly departed far before her time. There hadn't been one grey hair to be found on her fair-colored head as they laid her to rest. Her blue eyes had still shown with youth and vigor, even a few hours before the end. The year had been a quiet one, years after the War of the Ninepenny Kings, years before Robert's Rebellion. The lords of Westeros played at civility for a long summer and kept to their own houses all through the season.

They'd been up in the mountains—at a bend in the river where the waters formed a calm, clear pool of crystalline glass surrounded on all sides by groves of high-reaching evergreens. It was summer on Bear Island and Jorah's mother had hiked up her skirt to wade knee deep and bare foot in the cool, spring-fed waters. 

She had even smiled as she told Jeor she was going back to the Keep. The Old Bear, not so old then, was fishing in the long reeds and she waded over to him, disturbing a silver school of minnows and grinning at his grim frown, which chided her silently for chasing his game away. But she slipped her hand around his forearm and leaned up, kissing him and gaining his pardon immediately. She told him she'd meet him at home. Her head was aching fiercely and she thought she'd lie down for a half hour and maybe it would go away.

She never woke up. The maester who lived on Bear Island at the time said she wouldn't have felt a thing. The gods took the spark of her life in an instant, with all the caprice of a stray bolt of lightning in a clear blue sky.

_Nothing good can stay._

Jeor Mormont never spoke of her again, never said her name, not to the lords and ladies that visited the Island to pay their respects, not to his men at Castle Black, whenever the discussion turned to their lives before the Night's Watch, not even to Jorah…whose last memory of his mother was too similar. That day at the lake, she had turned her glorious smile on her little boy after leaving Jeor's side, gently mussing the sun-lightened strands of Jorah's red-blond hair as she walked out of the water and continued down to the Mormont Keep, without breaking her graceful step.

But when Jorah was still young, he remembers that his father would talk to _her_ , quietly, in hushed up tones, as Jeor sat with his back braced against the base of the marble statue at the mouth of her tomb. The statue had been fashioned in her likeness, as was custom among the Northern lords, but it was lifeless and Jeor didn't like to look at it, staring into the darker corners of the crypt instead. The Northern whiskey in the bottle he brought down to the crypts loosened his usually tight-lipped manner and a few times that Jorah had crept down there, he'd heard his father talking to his mother's ghost.

_They tell me to take another wife…but my heart is full of you. There's no room for another. And I would carve out my own heart before I carved out you._

Jorah knew, for a long time, that Jeor would take the Black and join the Night's Watch, although they never discussed it between themselves. They were too alike, and grim silence in the face of grief was a Mormont trait that the family hadn't been able to shake for a score of generations. Jeor remained the Lord of Bear Island only until Jorah was old enough to take up the mantle himself. The day he left the Island, Jeor pressed Longclaw into Jorah's hands and sailed off for the mainland with barely a word of farewell.

_Take care of the Island…_

Jorah had always wondered if his mother's ghost went with his father, all the way to Castle Black. He wouldn't be surprised. He felt his mother's absence keenly from the moment she died but when Jeor left Bear Island, it suddenly felt fresh. A wound reopened to the sting of injury. It was like she was gone all over again, passing beyond memory…and this time, his father was gone too. Never to share words with him again. 

Death pulls a veil over the faces of those we love. They fade under layers of gossamer sheets, a ghosting of memory pulled down with each passing year. Their voices linger, as echoes in the long grass and on the sea breeze. 

But the voices of the dead come and go, rarely to be summoned on command.

Jorah needed his father's counsel now. He went down to the crypts, though he knew his father wasn't down there. Jeor Mormont had been murdered at Craster's Keep and burned with the others that fell that day. His ashes were scattered above the Wall, his bones buried in the snow. 

Still, old habits die hard and it was as good a place as any to seek solace and wisdom. He lingered before his mother's tomb, standing in the same spot Jeor had frequented so often. But Jorah's gaze was fixed on his mother's features, or at least the marble face that claimed her likeness.

_After I've forgotten my mother's face…_

In his memories, her face was a haze already. The contours of hard stone could not capture the crease at the sides of her mouth when she smiled or the way her hands cupped his little face and kissed his forehead. The statue was a pale imitation. No wonder his father could never look at it. 

"I don't know how to be a father," Jorah spoke to the darkness, sighing on the fears that rattled around in his brain. 

_Neither did I. Neither does any man_ , his father's voice was strong in his ears. So strong. The bear sigil had never been worn by a more worthy son of this House. The fact that Jorah was here, alive on the Island that he had dishonored and betrayed, while his father was hundreds of miles away, on the mainland, buried in the ice and snow...sat ill with him.

It would always sit ill, he knew, no matter how long he lived.

"But you were always good and strong, Father," Jorah found himself answering the voice, quietly, as if talking to ghosts was as natural as talking to the living. "I've been weak and unworthy."

_We're all weak and unworthy. I couldn't save your mother. And I couldn't share her with you afterwards because my grief was black…black as the color I claimed as my own._

"You served with honor."

_I ran away from grief, son._

Jorah couldn't argue with that, though he knew he was the cause of some of that grief. More sins to be counted with the rest. He muttered, "My sins are too many…"

_Just love her and love the little one. That's the best any of us can do._ Jeor's voice continued, gruffly but with feeling.

_Listen to your father._ His mother's voice joined in finally, cadence as clear as on the last day he heard it. He would remember his mother's voice long after her face receded from view.

He knew what Daenerys would say about talking to ghosts, "Don't talk to the dead, Jorah. Talk to me." And then she would grin and pull his face down to kiss him and make him forget every dark thought that had ever dared enter his head, whirling on the joy of love that sparked between them.

But he was his father's son and there was something to be said for the grim solace found down in this crypt too. No wonder Jeor spent hours in this place. Still…

Jorah had a sudden image of his mother and father in his head—alive, well, walking arm in arm through a meadow of blue and violet flowers in a far, green country, far away from the dust and cold of this old crypt. He wasn't a praying man but he sent up a quick prayer that it wasn't just nonsense and romantic fancy that conjured up that image. Maybe there was another life beyond this one. He'd seen enough that he knew nothing was certain.

_Then let it be so._

He left the crypt soon after.


	35. Meera

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to one of the saddest, most melancholic chapters that I've written for this fic. Apologies in advance for what I'm about to do. But Meera Reed is just the perfect character to handle tragedy (which is possibly why I love her so much*). 
> 
> *Note to self: I've gotta give that girl her own story. Someday… 
> 
> Special thanks to my lovely amazing beta-reader, SmashingTeacups, for helping me choose a name for Brienne and Jaime's little boy. I love it! Mwah!
> 
> Next chapter will be lighter and I promise this one ends on a semi-hopeful note! Brienne will _absolutely_ see her son again. For all the angst I throw at you guys, I don't do tragic endings. Promise. Xo

**_Meera_ **

Greywater Watch was in mourning. 

Its master, Howland Reed, had passed sometime in the night. When Meera entered his bedroom early the next morning, breakfast tray in hand, she knew it immediately, though anyone else might have mistaken the old man's serene, eyes-closed visage for peaceful slumber.

But she knew. She knew as soon as she walked into the bedroom, faint morning light falling across her father's grey face. She had too much practice knowing how the air feels, how the silence deafens, and how everything changes in one heady moment, after the spirits of loved ones unmoor themselves, depart swiftly and fly off to only-the-gods know where. 

Meera blinked back the first, hot tears, stinging at her eyes insistently. She knew this was coming—those foolish tears should've known it too. She set the tray down on the night stand beside his bed. She'd made him a simple breakfast of toast and honey, with a steaming cup of blackwood tea. He preferred simple and these days she couldn't get him to eat much of anything else. 

She slumped onto the side of the mattress, her hands reaching for her father's cold wrist. She pressed her thumb against the silent vein, where she confirmed that his pulse had faded away to nothingness.

Just like that. 

Her father joined Jojen and her mother, leaving her behind. Leaving her _alone_. Meera kept his cold wrist captive in her hands for a long time, until the scullery maid came in to clean the ashes and stoke the fire.

"My lady, are you all right?" the maid began, though one look at Meera's face and the woman knew that their good master was gone. The maid set down her bucket of ashes and crossed the bedroom floor quickly, taking Lord Reed's cold hand from Meera's grasp and setting it down gently on the quilts. This sparked tears in Meera's eyes that she couldn't hold back.

This time her father wasn't there to hug her and make the pain subside. With a gleam of tears in her own eyes, the sympathetic scullery maid reached out her arms. She was covered in soot and ash but Meera didn't care. She accepted the woman's embrace without protest, holding on tight, needing to feel the warmth of another living person, to make sure that she wasn't a ghost too. 

_Like Jojen. Like mother and father. Like Hodor, Osha, Rickon, Shaggy-Dog and Summer. Like Bran too…spirit caged away by a Three-Eyed Raven._

Meera didn't bother brushing her tears away, letting them dry and then fall again in little trails down her cheeks, when she finally went downstairs and found Daniel, the steward, and told him to make all the necessary arrangements. 

"Of course, Meera," he answered with feeling, subdued and hit with the same despair that would settle on the whole house over the next few hours. In grief, he misspoke, using her given name instead of "Lady Reed", which she was now, undisputedly, as the very last of the highborns of Greywater Watch. 

But she was glad he called her Meera. The bleak loneliness that she'd been anticipating for weeks, as her father faded farther and farther from the land of the living, nearly lifted at that one, strange misstep. Daniel knew his mistake immediately. He could have corrected himself but was watching her face and gauging her reaction.

She shook her head slightly at his unasked question, giving him a little smile. "Thank you, Daniel," she said. 

And then Meera went upstairs and dug through her garments for something black. Meera didn't own any dresses, as she was most comfortable in trousers and hunting clothes and she'd been wearing them since she was a young girl. Her father and mother had encouraged her choice of wardrobe, knowing their daughter was no summer rose to be plucked, cut or put in a vase for display.

But she wore a dress once before, right after her mother passed away. The dress was her mother's, folded away at the bottom of a cedar trunk filled with her mother's things. It was black, simply cut and unadorned, with clean lines and minimal black lace. The fabric had smelled like the lavender scents that always lingered in her mother's brown hair. 

_You look like Mother. She's pleased, Meera_ , Jojen had said that first time, in his greensight way that said he knew what he was talking about. As they solemnly gathered to bury Jyana Reed, Howland caught sight of his daughter and smiled at her warmly, approving the choice. 

She found the same frock and pulled it on, gathering her curly, brown hair out from beneath the lace collar. She did up the buttons and smoothed the wrinkles in the skirt. She caught sight of herself in the looking glass and, for just a moment, saw her mother looking back at her. The lavender scents had faded away long ago but the memory remained strong and Meera gave a small sigh of something like relief. 

_You still look like Mother. More so now than before._ She would swear she heard Jojen whisper those words in her ear. And then her father, _You're very like her, Meera._

She didn't quite trust the voices. She wasn't like Jojen or Bran. Despite all she had seen and played witness to, she couldn't believe that the world beyond was so near to this one. Unless…

_Yes, darling, we're always with you._ Jyana Reed's voice came from a far more distant memory but was all the more sweeter for its unexpected appearance. Meera almost believed her mother's voice, more than the others, if only because she wanted it to be real.

_I wish you were here._

Meera took one last look at herself in the mirror, brushing at the tracks of tears on her cheeks and the stubborn wrinkles of that old dress, hiding the rest of her grief away, locked in her heart, before returning downstairs.

And this is how she bid goodbye to Lady Brienne of Tarth, who was returning north that very day. They had received a raven from Winterfell, the first one since the storms came to stay. The weather had turned slightly milder, threatening a mid-winter thaw, and Sansa Stark's raven had made it to Greywater Watch.

The scroll contained one line: _"I bid Brienne return immediately, with whatever news she has from Greywater Watch."_

Brienne's face betrayed more misery than Meera's, which on this particular morning was hard to manage. But Meera's grief was expected and natural, as a daughter outliving her father is a fact of life, hard as it may be. A mother being separated from her son when the child was not yet weaned…there was nothing natural about it.

The child—Brienne had named him Leo. With his golden hair, the choice was a fitting one. But with that golden hair and those sapphire eyes, there was no way for her to return with him to Winterfell. Not unless she wanted to declare her secret for all the world to hear.

Even only a few months old, he looked like both of them—Jaime and Brienne. A perfect match. Leo Lannister—he should have been, in a better, kinder world. Leo Snow—he would be, raised among the Reeds with a flimsy story about being left on the front doorstep in the middle of a snowstorm.

It was a half-hearted ruse and wouldn't last. Brienne must know it. Every time she looked at her son's face, she must see Jaime's. Meera had seen the Kingslayer only once, when she accompanied her father to King's Landing before the war, when she was only a child. If _she_ could see the resemblance from that one meeting, there was no hiding Leo's origins.

Except perhaps here, at Greywater Watch. 

"I'll return when I can," Brienne promised. Meera wasn't sure if the woman's words were for her or for the baby cradled in her arms. She barely took her eyes off Leo, bending and pressing another kiss to the baby's brow.

He was a quiet child and sweet-tempered, barely fussing from the beginning. After his birth, Brienne had taken Leo up to Howland's bedchamber and allowed the old man to hold the child. Meera's father had held the baby in the crook of his arm, like he once did with Jojen and Meera…like he once did with a squalling Jon Snow, standing on the dusty plains outside the Tower of Joy, before passing him up to Ned, for the long ride north. 

"May your fate be kinder, my boy," Howland Reed whispered a benediction over the child before giving him back to his mother. Then he told Brienne that she could stay at Greywater Watch for as long as she liked and that Leo would always have a place in this hall.

But now Brienne was being called back to Sansa's side and she couldn't bring herself to refuse that call. Perhaps more than anyone else in the entire Seven Kingdoms, Brienne knew what the value of an oath meant.

She could not break hers. No matter the cost. No matter the pain.

So she passed the baby into Meera's arms, her tears two-fold after she noticed Meera's red-rimmed eyes, her change of dress and its black, black color. Brienne swallowed hard before managing, "I will never forget your father's kindness. Not ever."

"Thank you," Meera whispered softly, holding little Leo close to her chest. The baby's warmth, much like the scullery maid's that morning, was a balm on the hollow emptiness that threatened to freeze her cold, with grief more paralyzing than any amount of ice and snow. 

Summoning that same brave spirit that had sustained her through a host of troubles and dark times, she promised, "Leo will be here waiting for you. We'll keep him safe. Return to us as soon as you can, Brienne."

Brienne's breath escaped as a strangled note and she couldn't speak. Not now, not for a long time after. She nodded, for Meera's sake, gratitude too shallow a word to convey her feelings. But her eyes were on her child. Her hand twitched, nearly reaching for him again.

With steely nerves, she resisted, out of duty, out of love…and out of time. As Brienne turned and walked out of the front hall of Greywater Watch, her shoulders bent and steps halting and unsteady, Meera's heart broke—for herself, for Brienne, for little Leo, for anyone, anywhere who had ever loved and lost anyone.

Grey was the color of her House. And for many years, grey would be the color of her soul. 

But she was Meera Reed, gods-be-damned, and—she looked down at Leo, making a secret pact with the golden-haired baby that had been left in her care—she would never let grief eat them whole.


	36. Tyrion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some Sam/Gilly family fluff in this chapter because they're adorable and I love them forever. Also some bitter lamentations by Tyrion because basically "why's all the rum gone?" only with wine ;) One last Sansa chapter left in the Winterfell storyline…oh yes, lovelies, we're approaching the end. It's bittersweet for me (I heart this story) but also exciting, because I can finally start outlining new stories :)
> 
> Next week - back to Bear Island. Mwah!

**_Tyrion_ **

Tyrion rebuilt the glass houses for Sansa. 

There was no great mystery in this, though he might have made some excuses to Sam that it was for the benefit of Winterfell as a whole or the practical thing to do. 

Tyrion had spent his life making these sort of excuses, avoiding the unsettling idea that his actions were wholly motivated from selfish whims or protecting those he loved from further harm. There was too much of Cersei and his father in those perhaps-more-accurate reasons so he preferred the excuse of advancing the general welfare. Sometimes he almost believed it was true. 

_Is there such a thing as selfish altruism?_ He wondered, far too self-aware for his own good, remembering the latrine and sewer project that he had completed in Casterly Rock all those years ago. Had he done such a thorough job for the sake of the city residents? Or was it for Tywin Lannister's approval?

Honestly, he didn't know. And he assumed it would be disingenuous to claim both.

But in any case, Sam ran with idea of rebuilding the Winterfell glass houses, giving Tyrion his full support and blessing, as both the Maester of Winterfell and an amateur gardener, in his own right. After the houses were rebuilt, Sam watched their chance of survival grow stronger with each shoot and bud that appeared in the dark earth, warmed by pale sunlight caught through frosted glass windows. Gilly too, found comfort and purpose in the act of making things grow. She spent hours in the glass houses, kneeling between rows of rutabagas, cabbages and winter greens, carefully thinning and tending to the resilient plants, giving them every chance to thrive. 

Often, Tyrion joined the Tarlys in the gardens…without the same enthusiasm, of course, but finding distraction from the grey skies in its greenery nonetheless. While Gilly tended to the vegetables, Sam was hoeing his patch of tangled herbs. Little Sam and Ghost were nestled among the flower beds, where they'd scattered seeds that Sam found unmarked in Maester Luwin's stores. There were daisies and hyacinth that seemed ready to give up as soon as they poked their heads out of the ground. But they were soon joined by lilies, irises and orchids, which seemed to change their minds. 

The colors in that corner of the glass house were wild and vibrant. At its center was a winter rose bush, flourishing in the colder climate, its pale blue flowers at home here. The winter rose was beloved by the Starks, so Tyrion paid it special care, hoping to present Sansa with one of its first blooms. 

But it was taking its own sweet time to flower. Tyrion found its stubbornness reminiscent of the family who loved it—strong vines, healthy roots, but buds locked away from any of his would-be ravishings, as if the flowers knew that he was trying to con their mistress into forgiveness and they wouldn't allow it. Not without a fight. 

_Cold-weather flowers_ , Tyrion mused to himself grumpily, impatient and unimpressed. _To hell with them._

He found himself wondering again—for perhaps the hundredth time—if Sam could find a way to grow grape vines in this weather. Now there was a plant with a purpose.

A delightful, delicious purpose.

Sam had assured him that grapes were native to the south and there were no vines in Winterfell that might be tricked into growing tall and strong, or heavy with ripe fruit, not even in the relative warmth of a glass house.

"Shame," Tyrion had answered, understatedly. His sister's honeyed voice was in his head saying the same thing and, in this one respect, he would agree with Cersei whole-heartedly.

But even without grape vines that might be pressed into an elixir that could make winter just a _little_ more bearable…he had to admit that the glass houses were beautiful. Sam and Gilly worked miracles under those glass plates and Tyrion found himself spending more and more time with the Tarlys, even tending to the plants occasionally. He was no gardener, but he was no winter child either. And the glass houses were currently the only place in Winterfell that wasn't colored in shades of white and pale grey.

Gilly had remained quiet in Tyrion's presence for a long time. The wildling woman practiced the same reticence that she impressed upon her son. She was slow to trust, which was understandable, given her origins. Besides, she had Sam, who spoke enough for both of them.

As they all worked side by side, however, Gilly appeared to relax her self-imposed rules of reserve. Not so much in taking Tyrion into her confidence. No, nothing like that. She said maybe one or two words to him at most. A small "thank you" here, a muttered "you're welcome" there, as they passed watering cans and weeds between them.

But she spoke to Sam, and Tyrion was allowed to listen. Their easy dialogue filled the glass house with a simple domesticity that Tyrion didn't know could exist. Here. In the ruins of Winterfell. In the middle of winter. 

"We had a little glass house at Craster's for a while," Gilly told Sam, her hands digging beneath a row of clustered carrot tops. "My mother grew violets and gillyflowers in it."

"I don't remember that," Sam's face took on a thoughtful glance, as he dug through his memories for those long ago months spent above the Wall. After a long pause, he conceded, "Although Edd, Grenn and I were busy shoveling out your father's pig sty so I may have missed it."

"No, it was long gone before you came," Gilly replied, sighing over events that happened years ago. "Craster broke all its windows in a drunken rage one night, screamin' at my mother…'what good are flowers in the snow?' he said."

"Well, they're good for a lot actually," Sam answered her dead father's cruel cynicism with his typical fact-based research, only enhanced in recent months by the number of hours he'd spent reading every herbalist text in Maester Luwin's bookshelves. He leaned on his hoe, considering the question fully, before concluding with a knowing nod, "Depending on the flower, it could save your life." 

"Gillyflowers aren't that kind of flower," Gilly replied smartly, having read enough books on the subject to know what she was talking about.

"Oh, I don't know about that," Sam answered her with a wink, continuing, "A gillyflower has saved my life at least a dozen times…"

Gilly grinned at the transparent compliment, lowering her blushing face beneath the large, leafy heads of winter cabbages. Sam grinned back, pleased as always that he could draw out a rare smile from Gilly. It wasn't easy, even for him. But the reward was worth it. Sam and Gilly eased back into comfortable silence, with Sam picking up his hoe once more and Gilly moving on to a row filled with beets and lettuce trimmed with crinkled, maroon-colored leaves.

Tyrion envied Sam's soft manner with his wildling wife. The love between them was palpable and uncommon, especially here, especially now. How had they managed it? Love in a time of monsters—it wasn't easy.

His mind wandered, attempting to pause on the image of Shae and that gold necklace she wore around her neck. Lannister gold had filled every corner of the Hand's Tower. His father's tower. But he pushed all those thoughts aside, with more effort than he was used to. The wine always made the thoughts slide away so easily.

_A little wine goes a long way…_ now the persistent thought of grapes entered his mind instead. He was grateful for the intrusion and followed that line of thought further. Maybe he could bribe Bronn into traveling south to find him some vines? Although, all thing's being equal, if Bronn was going south, he should just bring back a caravan's worth of bottles. Red, white or whatever other colors might be found in this wretched country.

Tyrion wasn't picky about wine. 

Looking at all the pretty flowers in that corner of the glass house, with their many colors—reds, violets, yellows—he suddenly considered. Maybe Sansa wasn't picky about flowers. Maybe she didn't like winter roses at all? Violet aster might suit her just as well. Violet petals against that red hair would look just as striking. She wasn't her Aunt Lyanna, after all. She didn't need a wreath of blue flowers laid in her lap. She wasn't the kind to fall in love with a silver-haired dragon.

_But what about a dog?_ He didn't give that unhappy thought even a moment's notice. Well, maybe just one, as jealousy rose too easily, tormenting him with the natural way the phrase traipsed through his head. _The scarlet wolf and her loyal hound…_

There was nothing in it, he reminded himself. Sansa and Sandor Clegane were not together. It was only his jealous mind that conjured the idea. She had cooled to him after he sent Brienne to Greywater Watch. And, in cooling to him, she warmed to the Hound. At least, the looks that he'd seen pass between them in the Great Hall said as much…

In the meantime, Little Sam picked a handful of weeds from a huddled patch of daisies and plodded over to his mother, handing the limp crabgrass over to her hands, "Here, Mama."

"Well done," she said, pulling the toddler close to press a kiss against his little cheek. "Now put it here, with the others. When they rot, they'll give their life back to the soil to make more flowers."

_So many flowers, Little Sam._ So many wines. Of all tastes and colors. But, try as Tyrion might, pretend as he may, his heart was currently fixated by one taste and one color and gods-help-him, _red_ was its name.


	37. Daenerys

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my head, I'm referring to the next three chapters as the #babybear chapters. Starting with this one… <3

**_Daenerys_ **

Winter slipped. 

Not for very long and not without a promise to return swiftly, angrily and with as much vengeance against those who foolishly thought they smelled spring on the air as ever. Spring was still a long way off. _Years away_ , Brandon Stark might have divulged if the Three-Eyed Raven had any interest in telling fortunes. 

But winter stumbled. And for a week or more, a southern breeze blew up from far south of the frost-kissed shores of Westeros, to breathe over the Seven Kingdoms and loosen winter's grip. 

It thawed. In the south, where a dusting of snow had reached all the way to the shores of the Summer Sea, the snows melted. _Good riddance_ , the Dornish said, shrugging off the heavy shawls and outer garments that they'd draped around themselves under protest.

In the north, the snow stayed but settled, with eaves dripping and frosted windows suddenly clear again. In the bays around Bear Island, the sea ice cracked, broke off and drifted away in giant chunks, to bob and float in the dark, cold waters of the channel. 

"Damn this winter to hell," Lyanna had muttered, when the weather turned. She told Jorah and Seffius, "You watch. It'll thaw just long enough to let those bastard pirates come ashore…" 

Lyanna was right, of course. As they all feared, the Greyjoys came with the thaw. Not Euron himself, who wouldn't risk his life in a raid—no he stayed home, feasting and drinking the winter away in his towers on Pike. But two ships carrying Ironborn fighters landed at Ynes Lyme on the third night after the first warm day. Jorah, Seffius and Lyanna were there to meet the marauders, with two dozen fighting men and women planted up and down the shore, ready to defend their homes and the Island against men without honor.

Daenerys had remained behind, as she was nearing her date to deliver. The child within her was sitting low in her womb and Maester Morlan said she might give birth any day now. False labor pains had plagued her for two days and she was tired of it. Tired of waiting for news. Tired of imagining the worst. Tired of being useless, when Jorah and the others were down at the bloody shore, outnumbered and outflanked. 

"I can't just sit here," Daenerys said suddenly, rising from the straight-backed chair she'd been sitting in, restless and unwilling to wait in tense silence for a moment longer. Mary had been sitting with her all morning, passing the hours by mending shirts beside the fire, and she looked up from her needle and thread with concern, watching Daenerys pace across the room, wringing her hands.

"They'll be all right," Mary assured Daenerys. Mary was Bear Island born and raised. She knew the dangers but had that stoic, long-suffering confidence that told her the bears would push the kraken back into the sea, as they had done a hundred times before. 

Daenerys had none of the other woman's confidence. And she knew that Bear Islanders accepted the death of a few over the safety of many. When Mary said they'd be all right, she meant the Island as a whole. She could make no promises over the individual men and women fighting on the shore and wouldn't be foolish enough to do so. 

Daenerys grimaced, from the persistent vision that plagued her hourly—of Jorah slain by a Greyjoy sword on the shore at Ynes Lyme…and from a dull pain that kept ripping at her abdomen, as the baby wouldn't stop moving that morning, as unsettled and anxious as its mother.

"But you should rest, my lady," Mary continued, setting her mending aside as she watched Daenerys close her eyes briefly, her hand drifting to her swollen belly to try and massage away that persistent, dull pain. "I know Maester Morlan says these pains are false labor but it won't be long, in any case…you'll do the child no good fretting over these things."

_As if I have a choice?_ The hot words that leapt to Daenerys's tongue were swallowed up by the edge of that last pain, a little stronger than the ones before. But it passed quickly and she nodded, just to placate Mary. The woman meant well and she was talking sense, despite the fact that Daenerys currently had no interest in hearing it. 

She just wanted Jorah to come back, whole and alive. A few tears, miserable things, tried to betray her fears but she blinked them back, too restless and angry in her restlessness to give into bleak sorrows and dark fears.

She thought she was done with this. The war was over, wasn't it? Hadn't they lost enough? Hadn't they paid in enough blood? If she closed her eyes, she could still see Viserion and Rhaegal plummeting from the ash-and-snow skies above Winterfell and hear the haunted howls that followed. 

So why was she forced to stand here now, waiting on news that her husband was unscathed and would return to her?

_Gods protect him._ She prayed, her hands curling around her heavily pregnant belly again, this time not in pain, but in protectiveness. Her mind was against her, whispering cruel memories of Khal Drogo and Rhaego and how she lost both in the span of a single day. She couldn't do that again, she knew. 

She wouldn't survive it.

Mary didn't know her thoughts but from the grave, sympathetic look she was giving Daenerys, the Bear Island girl certainly guessed them.

Daenerys tried to push those thoughts aside. She paced some more, wandering closer to the north-facing windows lining the outer hall. That northern horizon was dark, as always, and the sun would set soon. But there was something sinister in that horizon that hadn't been there before. 

It had been a little over a year since Daenerys and Jorah landed on the Island, outrunning that terrible storm that iced over the whole country.

But Daenerys hadn't forgotten the way those violet, storm-brewed clouds cluttered up the sky or the speed of the blizzard and vicious surrender it forced from all in its path. Those storm clouds that she saw gathering outside the windows of the Keep were too similar.

A storm was coming. And if they didn't finish tangling with the Greyjoys soon, Jorah and the others would be caught out in it.

Daenerys ignored the next pain that rippled through her abdomen, part of her knowing that the strength of these last few pains was something different than what she'd felt for two days. She didn't tell Mary. Before he left, Jorah had kissed her forehead and made her swear she would send for the Maester as soon as she thought the baby was coming. 

_No delays, no excuses._

"Come, Mary," Daenerys said instead, keeping her voice level, breathing through a contraction that threatened to steal her breath away. But she was stubborn and strong, the Mother of Dragons once again. "I need your help." 

### 

Drogon slept in the sea cave. He'd been sleeping for months. If dragons dream, she was sure he was happily diving and soaring in warm thermals, with miles of green fields and blue oceans beneath. 

Daenerys didn't begrudge him his dreams. She would let him return to them as soon as she could, but she needed Drogon now. She needed him to do what she could not. He would make quick work of the pirates, much quicker than the slogging, bone-weary work of steel against steel.

Although Mary hesitated and, at first, nearly refused, Daenerys convinced the girl to take her down to the sea cave and help her wake Drogon up. Fueled by that restless, anxious energy that would soon help her bring her child into the world, Daenerys continued to ignore the birth pains that came, more and more frequently, as they made their way down through the tunnel that led from the Keep to Drogon's chosen lair.

She was in labor. She knew it well enough. As they entered the sea cave, she had to bite her lip to keep from crying out and couldn't help but halt her steps, gripping the nearest lichen-covered stone for support. Mary noticed this time and gave her a look of glaring disapproval. 

Jorah had forced promises from Mary too. Although he never specified that she was not to allow Daenerys to mount a rescue mission when she was a few hours from giving birth, Mary was quite sure he would regard this as a failure on all her promises to keep Daenerys safe and within shouting distance of the Maester when the time came.

"My lady, you should have said something," Mary chided, mad at herself for letting Daenerys talk her into this in the first place.

Daenerys couldn't speak for a long moment, holding fast to that stone and breathing through the pain. Part of her found the idea of giving birth to their child in this cave almost fitting, as she had long suspected that the baby was conceived here, the day Jorah first showed her this place, the same day Theon Greyjoy had stumbled inland from the snow-covered sea ice.

"We have to get you back to the Keep," Mary insisted, taking the woman's arm and letting her lean against her for support as well.

"No, come," Daenerys managed finally, breathing deeply and rousing herself as the pain subsided. She resumed her steps, walking towards the dragon. She promised with a wry half-smile, "Help me wake Drogon and I'll go wherever you ask."

Mary hesitated, still angry at herself for being tricked by Daenerys. But they were here already and the dragon was so formidable, even sleeping, that Mary had to admit the Greyjoys would take one look at him and run back to the Iron Islands, dragging their damn kraken tentacles behind them.

" _Zaldrīzes buzdari iksos daor,_ " Daenerys spoke in Valyrian, her mother tongue falling off her lips so easily. "But wake, Drogon, Wake and help me."

Mary watched as Daenerys stroked the scales of the dragon's face lovingly while she spoke those ancient words. Daenerys used all the same careful tones and touches that Mary had seen horse masters whisper to green broke stallions. Daenerys continued speaking gently, cooing the beast awake, even as her breath shortened and Mary watched her grab at her belly again, tears of pain sliding off her pale cheeks.

Drogon's tail twitched, as he inhaled strongly. Then his front foot moved, claws stretching, and slowly, finally, after blinking those lizard eyes twice, Mary watched the dragon's eyes open. The servant girl had never seen a dragon and found herself frozen to where she stood on the sea cave floor, watching the dragon rise up on his front haunches, his attention on Daenerys.

Pained though they were, Daenerys's features broke into a grin. 

"Drogon," she exhaled on his name. The dragon lowered his head to her, accepting another caress. He seemed to sense she couldn't come with him this time, intelligently reading her face and sniffing at her pregnant belly once before stretching out his wings. Mary stepped back as his large wingspan grazed the air above her head.

With no time to waste, Daenerys spoke more High Valyrian but Mary could understand the final command well enough, "Fly, Drogon! Fly!"

And he did. The dragon loved his mother as much as she loved him. Spoiled and selfish as he was, he knew she needed him now. As he flew off, the wind from his flapping wings blasted through the mouth of the cave, mixing with all those cold, bitter winds that had returned. As Daenerys feared, a terrible storm moved down from the north swiftly.

Daenerys sighed in relief, but reached out for Mary's steadying hand, suddenly exhausted. And she was in for far more exhaustion before the night's end. A small flood of water spilled between her legs onto the sea cave floor, splashing on the black rocks that Drogon had been sleeping on until moments ago. No more pretend. Her baby was coming, whether she was ready or not.

_Please don't let my baby die…kostilus._ She prayed, in the common tongue and High Valyrian, all those dark thoughts of Rhaego suddenly rushing back, unable to be banished from her fear-addled mind.

"Let's get you back to the Keep, my lady," Mary said as she slipped her arm around Daenerys's waist and led the woman back up towards the tunnels, accepting no further argument. 

Daenerys nodded, currently unable to manage much else.


	38. Lyanna

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eeeeeee! Only two chapters left after this one – Jorah (extended chapter) and Sansa. Both are drafted and just waiting on editing. I'm also planning a fluffy little epilogue too though writing/posting that chapter may be delayed (ha! mostly because I don't want to say goodbye to this fic *bittersweet-sad face*)…but oh-my-god-oh-my-god I can't believe we're almost to the end.
> 
> Next chapter will have some specific shout outs to my faithful readers <3 But also a more general note in this one. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Mwah! My readers are the best! All your comments/kudos make me smile. Every. Single. Time. Xo

**_Lyanna_ **

The dragon's sudden appearance had been a blessing. 

After hours of holding the beach, they were losing ground to the Greyjoys. There were just too many of them—slithering, slimy, bastard krakens all. In the end, Lyanna knew that her fighters would outlast them, whether in the village, in the woods, wherever the Ironborn finally realized that the Mormont house words were no hubris…but the time to beat them back was growing short. A storm was coming. 

Lyanna heard the swoosh of dragon wings before she saw him, watching a black shadow sweep across the snow-crusted coastline. When the men and women on the ground looked skyward, a cheer went up from the tired and battle-weary Mormont ranks. Dafydd Longshaw lifted his bow towards the sky in salute and Seffius Claver clamped a strong hand on Jorah's shoulder, drawing his lord's attention to the dragon above.

With Daenerys Targaryen heavy with Jorah Mormont's child, there was no question which side the dragon came to fight for.

Drogon opened his mouth and orange fire poured out, cutting a trail of flames through the Greyjoy line. The pirates hadn't fought at Winterfell, having returned to the Iron Islands just after Euron attended the summit at the Dragon Pit. Now, they were stunned with dread, having never seen a dragon in the flesh…or a dragon in the sky rather, as the black beast swooped down to burn them all alive.

Many of the Greyjoys panicked, throwing down their weapons, giving up their fights and running back towards the smaller boats that had brought them ashore. A few were more brazen, made of pure salt and hard iron, and continued cutting at the Mormonts, the black dragon and his flames be gods-damned.

Lyanna wasn't concerned about the Greyjoys now. The kraken boy she'd been sparring with took one look at the dragon and rushed back to the boats with some of his brethren, splashing through the icy surf to dive into one of the rowboats headfirst, while clutching his side to keep from bleeding out on his way to safety. In their sparring, she'd cut him up good. If he lived through this, she wondered if he'd tell the folks at home that his scars were given to him by a fourteen year old girl.

_Unlikely_ , she thought. Inhaling the cold air, she brushed a few wayward strands of her dark hair away from her face with the back of her hand. The braid she'd tied it in was coming loose after hours of tussling with the Greyjoys. She'd been tempted to ask Daenerys to teach her how to braid like the Dothraki. She had seen those wild horsemen fighting on the moors of Winterfell—they were skilled warriors and certainly knew how to braid their hair tight enough that no battle could tug it loose.

_Next time_ , she decided firmly, while simultaneously wishing that next time never came. It was a fool's wish. They had dealt with these marauders for centuries, long before Lyanna's mother or her mother's mother had been born. 

_But perhaps…_ , Lyanna conceded as she watched the dragon make a second pass.

Bear Island was home to both bears and dragons now. And the combination was formidable. 

As Drogon continued picking off the Greyjoys on the shore, the wind picked up noticeably. Lyanna lowered the blood-stained knives in her hands to her side as she turned and faced the storm. No amount of frowning at the heavens would send stormy weather back beyond the horizon but she tried anyway, glaring at those violet clouds with as much rage as the blizzard would no doubt blow down on them any minute.

_Damn this winter to hell._

"My lady, we need to return to the Keep," Dafydd reached her side and urged her up the hill from the Ynes Lyme beach. He was looking at the clouds, same as her, but gave a brief nod to the sea as well, where Lyanna watched Drogon skim the churning water, hitting the Greyjoy ships with a blast of fire that sent up an anguished cry from the pirates in the rowboats and the few still skirmishing on the shore. 

With their retreat cut off, those remaining salt-and-iron krakens continued the fight, knowing they had no other choice. But their advantage was broken and now it was only stragglers and headstrong fools who tried to press forward. It was vanity but a raging kind. And Jorah, in particular, found himself still tangling with one of Euron's captains, a seasoned warrior who had been drowned and brought back more times than any living man had any right to be.

They were well matched but Lyanna had no doubt that her cousin would triumph. He was Jorah- _fucking_ -Mormont, not one of Euron's damn pirates. 

Snow began swirling around Lyanna and Dafydd and all the rest up and down the shore, the first flakes of a howling blizzard. The newly bloodied ground was soon hidden away by a fresh coat of white. They all remembered the storm that chased them back from Winterfell and how it threatened to freeze them where they stood or lose them in a blinding white haze from which they would never find a way out.

Drogon knew it too. After making one last sweep across the burning Greyjoy ships, toppling the charred mainsail on the flag ship and setting the choppy waves on fire with one last, hot breath of flame, he flapped off, back to his cave to hunker down and sleep his way through yet another blizzard.

Having just rid their shores of vermin, Lyanna had no interest in losing her fighting men and women to the weather. 

She nodded to Dafydd, "Call them back. Let's go home."

### 

"Don't you dare tell her that Ser Jorah's not back yet," Mary cautioned Lyanna sharply, as soon as she caught sight of her young mistress coming down the corridor from the Great Hall. 

Mary spoke, not as a servant speaks to her mistress, but as one woman speaks to another, when there are desperate matters to attend to. Mary's arms were filled with bloody strips of cloth, removed from the bedchamber at the end of the hall, where Daenerys had been laboring for hours. 

The dragon girl's moans and cries could be heard throughout these halls, competing with the howls and cries of the blizzard winds outside, which grew stronger by the minute. When Lyanna and the others made it back to the Keep, they were subdued, being met by the dangerous, tense sounds of both a woman giving birth and a blizzard on their doorstep. 

And Jorah had not returned with them. 

Euron's captain kept him fighting on the beach until the storm was on top of them. A swirling sheet of white enveloped them all and Lyanna lost sight of her cousin from where she and Dafydd crested the top of the ridge above Ynes Lyme. Seffius, who had left the beach much later, found his way back through the squalls after the others but, thus far, Jorah was still unaccounted for.

How Mary knew this—when she'd been assisting Maester Morlan and perched at Daenerys's bedside throughout the long night—Lyanna couldn't be sure. Although if she had to guess, it was likely that Seffius Claver would have found a moment to tell her, however brief. The captain and the servant girl appeared to have few secrets between them. 

_They certainly kept Jorah and Daenerys's marriage quiet, didn't they?_

In the meantime, Mary remembered herself, inclining her head briefly and muttering, with a less forceful tone, "She needs her strength, my lady. The child's giving her a difficult time."

"It's no wonder," Lyanna replied darkly, always wise beyond her years. "She lost her first child and was told she'd never bear another…"

"By a witch who proved false," Mary answered pointedly, not giving in to gloomy contemplations. Not yet. 

Surprisingly, Lyanna refused as well, merely nodding along to Mary's comment without argument. Both cringed as they heard the sharp pain in Daenerys's next cry, interspersed with the gentle encouragement of Maester Morlan. 

"That's it, Daenerys," the maester's voice was calm against the woman's pained cries. "You're almost there."

"I can't do this…," Daenerys managed after her cries dried up, in a breathless voice that spoke of the long, exhausting hours of labor that were doing their best to break her. 

"You _can_ ," Maester Morlan countered, firmly, with far more strength of conviction and will than Lyanna had ever heard him use in her presence. 

Daenerys didn't speak again, as the pain didn't leave her alone for long and she screamed once more, bearing down hard. The women in the hall outside shared a troubled glance, cringing again.

"Did Daenerys send the dragon to Ynes Lyme?" Lyanna asked Mary quietly, as this was the question that she'd come down this hallway to ask. 

"Yes," Mary replied, understatedly. The risk that Daenerys had taken in visiting the sea cave and sending the dragon to battle… 

"The dragon saved us," Lyanna murmured. " _She_ saved us."

Mary didn't need convincing. She had loved Daenerys Targaryen like a sister from the moment the dragon girl appeared in the kitchens, asking if she could knead that loaf of bread dough. Lyanna didn't need convincing either and suddenly found herself praying silently that Daenerys's child would be delivered safely and soon, for the sake of the mother as much as for the child that shared her blood.

As the stormy howls of the blizzard gnawed on the battlements and splashed the icy seawater up to its very walls, a piercing cry broke over the Mormont Keep… 

A newborn's strong, healthy cry echoed through its ancient halls.


	39. Jorah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I mentioned last week, there's still a Sansa chapter left. However, this is the end of the Bear Island storyline…until I write the epilogue and the missing scene fic anyway. 
> 
> Since I think most of my readers are here for the Jorah/Dany fix-it, I just wanted to say merci, mes amis! Thanks to everyone who came along for the ride but in particular, the following Twitter, Tumblr, AO3 and ff.net readers who took the time to leave me lovely comments (in no particular order – I heart you all): Anno1701, JessC27, charmingskyblue304, neesie-pie, Lemming, 51kas81, CopperEyed, @subtilia, @JessicaTooze, @SerJorahIsLove, @foxdvlc, MormontOfRivia, FirstDraft, ships_in_the_night, Reiselust, toxicstardvst, srortiz87, BastetGoddess, TheWingedLioness, Seeeas, PalominoOnCrutches, JuhVaz, Fisher, sm87, LovableKillerWhale, Itiswhatitis, serjor-uh, Kat+Morgan, brandylou, BlackandPinkUnicornGuardian, Ann, SS42, a girl is someone, azerty29, anyone else I might have missed and finally, as always…to SmashingTeacups who forced me into writing this story in the first place :) :) :) 
> 
> Here's to the hope and dream of an _awesome_ Season 8, complete with an ending worthy of our ship. Hey, it could happen. And if not, we'll always have fanfiction…
> 
> Mwah!

**_Jorah_ **

Jorah finished off Euron's captain in a blinding, cold spray of steel, snow and ice. The pirate crumpled into a heap on the snowy beach, rolling with the crash of frosty seawater that soon came up to claim his sword-torn body. 

Jorah swiped at the hot blood on his cheek, and examined a narrow slash on his sword hand. His wounds were just scratches this time, which was fortunate. Before he left the Keep, Daenerys told him that she had absolutely _no_ interest in him gathering more scars to add to the rest. 

In fact, she _forbid_ it and told him that if he came back to her injured, she would kill him.

He had smiled at his little wife's strong-willed teasing, even while noting that her features were colored with anxiety and her words were only half in jest. Her worry broke his heart, as always. Before he took his leave, he gathered her up in his arms, embracing her tightly but carefully, ever mindful of the child between them.

"I'm tired of farewells," she said against his shirt, her silver-haired head pressed tight against his shoulder.

"Me too," he answered at her ear, pressing a soft kiss at her temple before he pulled back. He bent on one knee and pressed a second kiss to her pregnant belly, while Daenerys's fingers played in his hair. He turned his gaze back up to hers, vowing, "But I'll come back, _Khaleesi_. I'll always come back to you…"

_Always._

This was a promise he meant to keep, even as he peered into the blizzardy landscape around the beach at Ynes Lyme grimly and wondered if maybe he finally promised too much.

"Winter is here," he muttered sourly at the weather. He added in his head, _And what a bitch she's decided to be._

In the distance, Jorah heard the desperate cries of the remaining Greyjoy sailors, as their rowboats were smashed by wild, insurgent winds blowing over the jagged, rough-hewn coastline. The wooden vessels were dashed over black rocks in the harbor, snapping and splitting apart, with men tossed into the churning water and frothy surf. The swirling snow obscured any more than a shadow's view of the drowning men.

The wind brought death and the air turned cold again, as cold as that night that Jorah found Daenerys trapped behind the lines of the dead at Winterfell and they both watched Rhaegal and Viserion fall from the bruised-violet sky.

He remembered finding her and dragging her up from that pile of corpses. He remembered pulling her back against him, holding her close. She was cold, blood-stained and injured, her braids ruined, her clothes streaked with battle grime, but his heart had leapt at finding her and holding her once again.

It wasn't a new feeling. _Gods, no…_

He remembered helping her down from a Dothraki mount after a ride that went on for far too many hours and the way her hands curled up around his neck instinctively. His heart had leapt at her touch all the way back then too.

From the moment he met her, all those years ago, on a beach as far from this one as it could possibly be, he should have known. He knew soon enough, in any case. But there was fate in that first meeting that he failed to recognize until later, after that first blush of affection had consumed him…and continued consuming him. 

The winter may try to freeze his blood, but his heart belonged to a dragon. And it burned for her. For Daenerys Targaryen. 

_Daenerys Mormont_ , he could hear her remind him with that sweet tone, that same teasing pleasure she turned on him whenever they were alone, stealing kisses from his willing lips, tracing skin beneath her wandering, wondrous touch. 

Let the storm blow and bluster. Let the frost try to eat at his bones. He sheathed his blood-stained sword, pulled up his fur collar and began trudging. He knew these lands blindfolded, even snow blind—he was blind to its dangers, but only out of resolve.

He would get back to her again, as he always did, or die trying.

### 

They couldn't keep his continued absence from Daenerys. She knew. Of course, she knew.

For if Jorah had returned to the Keep with the others, what _possible_ reason could keep him from coming to her now, as she waited, propped up against the pillows piled against the headboard of their bed, his child swaddled and cradled in her arms?

The baby girl had a healthy set of lungs and cried loudly enough that the winds outside were nearly drowned out by her first howling cries, as Maester Morlan washed the child and then wrapped her in a clean, warm blanket. Strong-willed, she didn't stop crying until she reached her mother's arms.

"Shhhhhh," Daenerys cooed softly to the baby as the maester handed her over. After a long night of labor, Daenerys's features betrayed fierce exhaustion, but they broke into a smile at the sight of the baby. _Her_ baby. She continued in soft, maternal tones, "Yes, that's right. Hush now."

The child settled in her mother's arms, safe and warm once again. Daenerys beamed, her whole being flooded with love for this little thing in her arms. All the pain and anguish of the grueling hours before vanished in a single instant, with a magic far more powerful than any Daenerys had encountered across the Narrow Sea.

She was perfect, as all babies are perfect. Ten fingers and ten toes. A fuzz of silver blond hair covered her smooth scalp. When she yawned and stretched, Daenerys caught her wandering little fist and the little girl's fingers curled around Daenerys's thumb. When the baby opened her eyes, Daenerys saw blue, blue irises—the same color as Jorah's. 

She looked down at her daughter with awe—how strange it was to love someone you never met before. And love them so completely. Her smile deepened and that expression remained fixed on her face for some time…

Until minutes and then hours passed, and Jorah did not come. The storm grew in strength, wind howling against the Keep walls, drafts sweeping down the corridors and attempting to snuff out candlelight and the crackle of hot fires. Night gave way to morning and then morning slipped into afternoon, but without a change in light. The darkness of unnatural night surrounded them at all hours. 

And still, Jorah did not come. 

Mary tried to assuage Daenerys's fears with optimistic musings that were uncommon to the Mormont household. Whether she believed her own words or not, was a different matter. But for Daenerys's sake, Mary tried.

"Give him time," Mary said, when she came in at dawn or just after, bringing her mistress a tray of something light to push around and pick at. Daenerys couldn't eat a thing, even if she forced herself. Not until Jorah was back, safe at home.

Seffius Claver had come in with Mary and nodded along with the servant girl's words…though Daenerys could read his face well enough.

Despite his encouraging nod, the pragmatic sea captain was anything but optimistic.

Daenerys appreciated Mary's efforts and bravely gave a little smile back. It was easier with the baby in her arms than it would have been otherwise. But the flood of joy in her heart mixed with a clutch of fear. Her emotions unraveled into a sinking sensation that she knew too well, and she wasn't hiding those feelings from anyone.

Especially not Lyanna, who came in soon after to see the baby and pay her respects to the newborn bear child who would carry her family name. With discretion, Seffius and Mary both took their leave at Lyanna's entrance, closing the chamber door behind them.

"I don't know what I'll do if he doesn't come back," Daenerys admitted to the younger woman once they were alone, and only after a long moment of silence passed between them. Her voice was quiet, nearly a whisper, and broke on the ragged, faithless words. Lyanna's gaze flickered from the child to the mother.

Lyanna's brown eyes met Daenerys's violet ones, as they had above the pyre that burned Theon Greyjoy's body. There was recognition in that gaze, and understanding. They were not sisters yet, but in that moment, they both knew they would be.

"He'll come back," Lyanna answered, her gaze drifting back to the baby girl in Daenerys's arms. She took a step closer, reaching down and running her fingers lightly across the little girl's forehead, as if blessing her. The words she spoke were not conjured by hope or optimism. It was just a statement, blunt as always. 

And then she said more, surprising both Daenerys and herself with the words that followed, "But if he doesn't, Daenerys, this is your home…" 

The young she-bear nodded her head, with emphasis, adding in her clipped Northern accent, "And here we stand." 

### 

Daenerys shouldn't have doubted him. She knew better. He'd promised. And Jorah never broke his promises to her. Not once.

Even if it nearly killed him. Even if this time, he made her wait. And wait some more. Not that he had any choice in the matter. The storm had the final say in his long path home, the shelter it forced him to take before setting out again. She would have scolded him for those lost hours, where her mind had feared the worst, where she had fasted and prayed and held onto her child, keeping her close, afraid that the baby might be all she had left of the man she loved.

_Please don't take him from me. I've only just found him…_

Night fell once again, though she didn't notice. The door to the bedchamber opened. Daenerys looked up, expecting Maester Morlan, Lyanna, Mary—

His blue eyes. His _dear_ , blue eyes.

He was covered in snow, frost in his beard, blood on his clothes. He hadn't taken the time to seek out a fire or a wash basin before finding her. His first thought, as always, was of her. She could never scold him for that.

There was something familiar in the way their eyes met. This had happened before. In Qarth, after those warlocks took her dragons, after Irri and the others had been slaughtered—she heard footsteps run up the stairs to her balcony and when she turned, those eyes met hers, his strong, living presence a safe port in a swirling, raging storm. 

_You came back._

"Jorah…," her voice broke on his name, tears of relief and joy and a thousand other things flooding her vision. With the baby held in her one arm, she raised the other, reaching for him, begging for his touch—to make sure he wasn't just an apparition, sent to torment her with false promises. 

He was real enough. Jorah crossed the distance between them quickly, taking her hand and pressing his lips to her palm. 

### 

He cleaned himself up and they both shared a hot meal, which the kitchen girls were only too happy to prepare, even if it was the middle of the night. The others were told of Ser Jorah's return and the tense, anxiousness that had settled over the Keep for the last day and a half lifted, their victory against the Greyjoys and the birth of a new Mormont finally celebrated with all the happy joy the two events deserved.

Sometime near midnight, the storm passed.

"You should sleep," Daenerys said softly, reaching up to cup her free hand at Jorah's cheek in that old, familiar caress, her fingers curling along his jawline. They were alone now, sitting up in bed, in the same place that Daenerys had battled all her darkest fears and muddled grief only a few hours before. But this time, Jorah was beside her and there was no fear or grief to be found anywhere in that chamber. 

The dragon girl leaned back against her bear knight's broad chest contentedly, letting his arms slip around her. The baby was resting quietly in the crook of hers, and Jorah couldn't take his eyes off them both…no matter how exhausted he was. 

"Soon," Jorah promised, pressing yet another kiss against her temple, his lips whispering over the strands of her silver-blonde hair. His child would have her mother's hair. He was glad. He was glad about so many things.

With one last caress, Daenerys's hand slipped from his face to adjust the swaddling clothes on the baby, before resting on the soft fabric. Jorah's hand joined Daenerys's, their fingers interlacing, while his thumb reached up and brushed at the smooth, perfect skin of the baby's little cheek. His daughter slept soundly under her father's gentle touch. 

The thought gave him pause.

_My daughter._

"Have you given her a name?" he wondered softly. They hadn't discussed it before. Not once. He knew why. Until this moment, here and now, neither one of them dared believe the impossible. Or what had seemed impossible for so long. Redemption, family, happiness.

_Home._

But Daenerys nodded, turning her head from the baby to her husband. A sweet smile played at her full lips. Her violet eyes brimmed with love, for the baby, for him, as she replied, "Her name's Jeorgianna. After your father."

He was speechless for a moment, not expecting her answer. Her smile widened, knowing she would receive no protest but asking, just the same, "What do you think?"

_What do I think?_ He thought a great many things. He thought of the way sunlight turned her silver-blonde hair gold, falling around her pretty face in waves. He thought of the way her lips tasted the first time they kissed. He thought of the way she took his hands on the beach at Dragonstone and the love that had been in her eyes, even then. 

Last, he thought of her in a lavender dress, stroking the mane of a white horse and turning to him to ask, so softly, _Ser Jorah, I don't know how to say thank you in Dothraki?_

There was no word for thank you in Dothraki. There was no word in High Valyrian or the Common Tongue either. Not really. Not when trying to express gratitude to the woman who had given him everything.

"I think I love you more than any man has any right to love anyone," he answered, dipping his head by a degree to kiss her lips gently. As he pulled back, she caught his bearded chin and held him fast.

"No more than I love you," she said back, stealing another kiss before letting him go. 

Jeorgianna cooed, waking sleepily to stretch, and in the process, bringing her mother and father's attention away from each other and back down to her, where it belonged. 

"And no more than we love you, Jeorgianna," Jorah added quietly, with a deep chuckle, his words for the little girl who knew nothing yet of the power of love she'd been born into. 

She would though.

Years and years later, whenever anyone asked Jeorgianna Mormont about the Long Winter and how they survived, how they _thrived_ through a season that was intent on murdering them all, she always answered the same. The lesson learned from her mother and father stuck with her until the end of her days: 

_The night is dark and full of terrors…but love defeats them all._


	40. Sansa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter, m'dears (though look for the promised epilogue in a few weeks)...the multi-shipping continues lol. Because hey, I don't really have to make a final decision on Sansa's love life until I write the sequel to "Winter's Child", do I? Crisis delayed ;)
> 
> But, in any case, Sansa has definitely won my heart, despite all those years of muttering at my TV, "please for the love of god, Sansa, stop it with the trusting people." Cold, calm, #fierceSansa is my favorite version of Sansa. And other than collecting more Jorah/Dany moments to rewatch a thousand times, she's the main reason I'm looking forward to S8. 
> 
> All Hail Sansa Stark, the Glorious Queen of Winter <3

**_Sansa_ **

"Lord Tyrion is asking for an audience with you." 

Sansa was standing on the frosted balcony that overlooked the crystal white courtyard of Winterfell. She'd been standing there for some time, alone, when Arya suddenly appeared by her sister's side. 

This was the same spot upon which Ned and Catelyn Stark had stood years ago, before the war, before winter, side by side, watching Bran learn how to shoot arrows with the older boys. If Sansa closed her eyes, she could picture Bran, taking a deep breath, while Jon and Robb looked on down below, encouraging their little brother, but suppressing their laughter too, as Bran's arrow didn't just miss its mark, but went wildly beyond the target. 

They were still so young. They were _all_ so young.

Here, on the balcony, she could almost hear the old echoes of her father's deep voice and see her mother's sweet face, the memory deeply imprinted in the beams of the castle itself.

_And which one of you was a marksman at ten? Keep practicing, Bran._

And just as she had that long-ago day, Arya appeared suddenly, with a cat's agility, on quiet steps and with an assassin's skill of coming out of the shadows unnoticed.

Sansa was getting used to it, finally. She didn't jump at Arya's unexpected voice or give her that same old glare, resurrected from their childhood, which said she'd rather Arya…didn't. Those talents that her sister learned so well at the House of Black and White in Braavos were grimdark in a way that would never rub off. 

It was no less than what Sansa learned at the hands of Joffrey and Ramsay Bolton, she supposed. The sisters had both changed from who they were as little girls. There was no getting around that. But Arya had changed _so_ much—her mannerisms, the shadowy intelligence sparking behind her wide, observant eyes, that faceless man sense of mystery and menace that clung to her, like briars on fabric. 

They never squabbled now. Not like they used. How could they? A silent truce was made between them the day Jon died and Winterfell was nearly overrun by dead men. Or perhaps it came even before that, when Arya used the same dagger that had sliced into their mother's soft palm to slit Petyr Baelish's unworthy throat.

_Do you deny it, Lord Baelish?_

In Sansa's nightmares, that man still came to her—whispering, plotting, his long fingers reaching out to touch her red hair. She froze in those nightmares, as if she were a child once more, paralyzed by his ghostly touch, closing her eyes slowly, ignoring his desperate whispers until she was able to wake herself up.

Too bad Arya couldn't slay the Littlefinger that lived in her dreams as well. 

But her little sister could banish away a certain strand of loneliness that sometimes snaked its way into Sansa's soul, trying to eat away at her with a constant appetite. Sansa and Arya were all that was left of the Starks of Winterfell. 

_And Bran_ , she amended in her head. But if the Bran she knew, who climbed castle walls and listened to Old Nan's stories with rapt attention, lived within the Three-Eyed Raven's all-knowing gaze, Sansa couldn't see it. 

And so she was always fortified by her little sister's appearance beside her. No matter how sudden or unexpected that appearance was. Because no matter how deep the fissures between them or the differences in personality that had plagued them in their younger years, they had survived where Father, Mother, Rob, Jon, Rickon and Bran did not.

They were all each other had left.

"Again?" Sansa mused at Arya's words, her tone flat and betraying none of her true feelings on the matter. 

"He _begs_ for an audience," Arya added, grinning slyly. Her grin was cat-like too, as she knew too well how her sister would react to the request.

"I don't care," Sansa muttered, her frosted breath hovering on the sigh that followed. She continued, "He thinks now that Brienne has returned, I should forgive him for sending her away in the first place."

"Winter's a long season to hold a grudge," Arya shrugged. Her words held little weight, as they both knew how long she'd held onto her long list of names.

"He should have considered that before he sent her away without my permission," Sansa replied, bitterness coloring her tone.

"Brienne agreed to go," Arya pointed out, sensibly. Part of Sansa wondered if she made the point only to be contrary…but she doubted it. They were far beyond those old games. But Arya added, "And she didn't ask your permission either."

Sansa turned that same old glare on Arya, after all. Her little sister took no offense. She even held up her hands as a peace offering. 

"You know the Imp better than I," Arya conceded, her sister's feelings of more concern to her than the dwarf's. "But I don't think he would ever intentionally undermine you, Sansa. You should talk to him."

Sansa remained silent, brooding as bad as Jon. In an effort to lighten her mood, Arya's sly, cat-like grin returned.

"Unless you would rather talk to Sandor Clegane?"

Sansa refused to blush. She regretted telling Arya _anything_ about her midnight visit to Sandor's chambers. And she hadn't told her sister all. Enough, but not all. And not that anything had happened. 

_But not that it hadn't…_ she resisted the sudden urge to raise her fingers up against her lips.

Her feelings regarding the Hound were complicated. They had been complicated for years, since the night Tyrion's pyromancers set the Blackwater on fire, maybe even before. But those feelings went deep, down a dark pit that Sansa wasn't sure she could climb down. Or _should_ climb down. For where would she emerge? 

_And yet…_

She wouldn't admit it to Arya, but oh yes, part of her wanted to run to the Hound that moment and ask him to hold her close and wrap his arms around her shoulders. She would close her eyes against his chest and feel his strong arms encircle her, blocking out the darkness and Ramsay's cruel sneers, Joffrey's raging tantrums, Littlefinger's ghostly whispers, keeping out the entire world, the past, present and future collapsing into a single moment in time.

_Nothing can hurt you here, little bird._

There was danger in these thoughts, she knew. She was Lady Stark of Winterfell and the Queen of Winter. Her people needed her. She had to be strong. She had to be the phoenix, her red wings outstretched and fierce. The little songbird would run off with her loyal dog, singing any songs he might ask for. And in return, wouldn't he would protect her, love her and keep her safe? 

But she must not give into that voice. For if she did, would she have the strength to get through winter?

And _Tyrion_. 

What of Tyrion? He knew what it was like to put duty before inclination. He knew that the things we want aren't always the things we can have. Once, she thought they understood each other. 

After all, the dwarf had been her husband once. Arya was right. She couldn't ignore him forever.

"Fine," she relented. "I'll talk to Tyrion."

### 

"You asked to see me?" Sansa found him in the glass house, wearing gardening gloves and pruning a winter rose bush. The roses caught her eye, blooming despite the snow piled up against the windows a few yards away. Her demeanor, hard and unyielding as she stepped through the glass house door, instantly softened at the unexpected sight of those blue flowers. 

She murmured, "You got them to bloom…"

Tyrion looked up at her voice, surprised that she'd answered his summons. She'd ignored so many of the others. He had words planned out for this moment—apologies, explanations, entreaties. But instead, he found himself just nodding, "They're beautiful. I can see why your Aunt Lyanna's head was turned."

Unexpectedly, Sansa smirked at the implication. 

"I think that had more to do with the man who gave her the flowers," she replied, taking a step closer and raising her hand up to touch the sky blue, frost-painted bud under her fingertips. Her red hair, framed against those green leaves and blue petals took Tyrion's breath away. 

He recovered after a long moment, saying, with feeling, "I wish you would..."

She looked away from the flowers, meeting his gaze for the first time in months. He seemed so broken by her unwillingness to forgive him. She wondered why it should mean so much? He had dealt with far worse at the hands of his own family. _From the first, his own father and sister blamed him for his mother's death…_

And there it was. 

She blinked, suddenly reading the deeply-rooted pain in his eyes for what it actually was. He hid pain so well usually, behind drink or witty words. But it was fear, wasn't it? The kind she knew when she was stranded in King's Landing, her father dead, her sister missing—a lone wolf surrounded by lions that wished to claw out her throat.

He was _alone_. 

More so than she had ever been. For, even in the darkest moments, she had memories of a mother and father who loved her dearly and brothers and sisters who, despite their differences, would do anything for each other. Tyrion's mother had never known him and his father would have rather he expired the moment he took his first breath. His sister _hunted_ him and would have seen him torn apart, limb from limb, had she managed it.

And now, in the bleak mid-winter, Sansa found herself at home, with Arya, even with Bran, and certainly with sweet memories which would sustain her for many years to come. But what did Tyrion have?

_You_. His eyes said it for him. _I have you._

"I can't…," she began, taking her hand down from the rose bud slowly. _I could…should._ The echoes of old words rang in her ears. She tried again, "I can't pretend to understand why you did it. But I…think I could trust that you had your reasons, even if you can't share them with me."

"I want to, Sansa," he assured her, his voice going hoarse on her name. "But I can't."

She wondered at those words, and the secrets they implied, but she didn't press further. They couldn't go back, but they could start again. Her gaze drifted around the glass house, teeming with green things.

_The promise of new beginnings._

"The glass houses are beautiful," she said, as a peace offering. It was true and she'd thought it for a long time, since the moment he and Sam started the project. He smiled at her, not that smarmy grin that wine could elicit from him so easily but something more genuine, warm…and familiar.

"As are you, my lady," he answered, without hope or agenda. It was just a compliment, plain and simple. And she could hear the depth in his tone—he didn't just mean her pretty face.

"Thank you, Tyrion," she replied.

She would have said more. She _would_ say more soon enough. Arya was right. Winter was too long to hold onto a grudge. Life was too short. And the darkness of the world was too willing to eat away at the bright spots, unless it was held back. 

By flowers blooming in a glass house. By a gentle word and a caring heart.

Before she could say anything further, Sam Tarly entered the glass house, his cheeks red from the frosty walk across the castle grounds. He had been in the aviary all morning and was now clutching a raven's message in his hand.

The raven's message was marked by the bear seal of House Mormont—the first message from Bear Island that had arrived since the battle at Winterfell, over a year before.

"Lady Sansa, Lord Tyrion!" Sam's excitement couldn't be contained. He was out of breath and could manage little else, waving off their anxious glances, too often expecting bad news, and just handed the message over into Sansa's hands.

She unrolled the parchment quickly, noting Lyanna Mormont's distinctive handwriting and brusque style, going speechless at the astonishing news.

_We trust the Starks survive at Winterfell. Bear Island abides. Ser Jorah has returned to us and Lady Daenerys has borne his daughter - a winter's child with her mother's features and her father's eyes. Thanks be to the Old Gods and the New. – L. Mormont_

Sansa handed the parchment to Tyrion, who just smiled and said, "Thanks be, indeed." 


	41. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hey, I'm back! For a hot (cold?) minute anyway. And with some promised Mormont family fluff. This, at long last, is the final chapter of this story…and acts as a little bridge between this story and Jeorgianna's story in _Winter's Child._ Hope you enjoy it :)
> 
> Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays/general best winter-wishes to all my readers. Mwah! Until we meet again! Xo

**_Jeorgianna_ **

My first memories are painted in silver and white—the colors of winter. 

The color of my mother's hair as she bent down to pick me out of my cradle, smiling at me, cascades of silver-blond strands falling on either side of her face. The color of the bear rug covering the floor in front of the fireplace in my parents' bedchamber, where my father would kneel down and bring me toys—a little dragon whittled out of hemlock, a fabric bear stuffed with down. 

Silver and white—the color of the lake up in the mountains above the Mormont Keep, iced over and gleaming like the smooth face of a mirror turned up towards the pale rays of winter sunlight. And all the evergreens covered in snow… 

I was only three or four, bundled up in furs and wool, the hood of my little cloak pulled up, as we braved the chilly weather to enjoy an uncommonly sunny winter day on Bear Island. We walked up to the lake from the Keep. Or the others did anyway, as the snow was still too deep for my little footsteps. One of Lyanna's taller guards went first, wearing snowshoes and making a path for the rest. 

I was carried, first in my mother's arms, then passed to my father after he offered, "I can take her, Daenerys."

I settled in my father's arms as easily as my mother's, reaching up with my little hand to grab hold of the soft fur lining at the collar of the coat he wore. The fur on his coat was dark brown. Mother's was white. But both were soft and warm and I never had any preference between the two. 

They passed me between them enough that I knew, even young as I was, that I was loved. And cherished—entirely, completely, utterly—by two people who would never let anything happen to me. Years later, I would recognize that not all mothers and fathers love their children as well. But when I was still little, I knew only that my parents loved me as much as I loved them.

I let my head fall against my father's chest as he trudged up through the snowy hillside. His steps were steady and strong. The weather was milder than it had been in months. There was a trickle of water running under the ice at the stream. There were birds making noise in the forest. With me held snugly in one arm, my father reached back to help my mother climb over a frosty log that had fallen in the path. He waited and offered his hand to Lyanna as well, but she rebuffed him, as always, needing no assistance. 

We arrived at the lake before midday. A thaw and refreeze had frozen the lake solid once again, while keeping its face free from snow drifts. The ice was smooth and cold, like the length of a knife blade. Like the blades that the Bear Islanders brought with them, to affix to their boots and glide across the ice like water dancers.

They say the Dornish learn to ride horses at the age of three, as the sand steeds are as wild and beautiful as their riders, and it's best they get used to each other early. The Dothraki learn to ride and fight even earlier. The Lannisters learn the value of a coin in the cradle. And they say that the river-land Tulleys, before that great family was decimated in the War of Five Kings, learned to dance at the age of four or five, knowing that the skill would be required in the pursuit of their greatest asset—advantageous marriages.

But the Mormont children, born and bred up here, on a cold island at the top of the world, learn a skill unique to the rest of Westeros. Their children learn to ice skate and they learn it as early as the first winter day that is tolerable enough to venture out into the snow.

At the lake side, my father carried me over to a nearby boulder and gently set me down on its flat surface, kneeling on the frosted, snow-covered ground in front of me as he nimbly affixed small, silver blades to the bottoms of my little boots. I watched his hands, weathered and strong, tying up the laces expertly. He'd done this many times before. 

My mother, on the other hand, had lived in hot climates for most of her life. Ice-skating was a foreign to her as bankruptcy was to a Lannister, or an honest living was to a Greyjoy.

She hovered above us, in her white coat and silver-blond braids, giving my father a sheepish look as she held up the blades that one of the boys had passed into her hesitant hands, "I'm not sure how to use these."

"I know," he answered her, looking up from my boots to give her a warm smile of encouragement. He promised, "It's easy, you'll see."

With a final pull, he tied the laces on my boots tight and then picked me up again, keeping me snug in the curve of one arm as he took my mother's elbow with his free hand, leading her down to the lake side, where some of the others were already on the ice, laughing as they cut lines in the frosted surface. The _swish swish_ sound of metal sliding against ice rang in my ears pleasantly, although I'd never heard it before. 

"Lyanna?" my father called his cousin back, as she was already ten yards out, spinning gracefully. She was as comfortable on skates as she was at the head of the family table. My cousin Lyanna was blood of the Old Bear, with ice and snow taking up as much space in her veins as the rest of it. But she listened to my father, more than anyone else, and heeded his call immediately.

"Take Jeorgianna, would you?" he asked, handing me over into Lyanna's arms, adding with some tease in his soft voice, "I fear her mother will prove the more difficult student."

"Jorah!" my mother immediately swatted at his arm, playful but nearly indignant. She muttered, with less confidence than the words that followed might imply, "I rode dragons through the skies of Essos and Westeros. I think I'll be able to ice skate."

"I have no doubt, _Khaleesi_ ," my father said, pulling her close and pressing a kiss against her temple. 

Lyanna huffed at their banter and then rolled her eyes at the kiss that followed, and the one after that, not one for expressions of love and affection, even among those she loved dearly. And she _did_ love us, our familial bond deep as the roots of the Island, evergreen as the spruce and pine that sheltered the lake from the cold sea winds that were still blowing, even under high blue skies. 

"Good luck," Lyanna mentioned to my father, dryly, before skating away with me on her hip, turning on her feet with a command of balance and speed that befitted her confident nature. 

I clung to my cousin like a bear cub, almost as happy in her grasp as in my mother and father's. I'd known Lyanna for as long as I'd been alive and her face and dark brown eyes were as familiar to me as my parents. And while she respected my father and loved my mother, she _adored_ me. I was the baby sister she never had and she treated me that way, giving me all the warmth and patience that she gave no one else. 

"Come on, Jeorgianna. Let's see you skate." She lifted me from her hip and set me down on the ice carefully, leaning down and keeping hold of my arms and shoulders until I found my balance. The blades I stood on slipped but she held me steady, as I found my footing again, chuckling over my first few attempts. When I took my first, stumbling slide, she said, "That's it. Look at you! You're a natural, Jeorgianna."

She kept hold of my hand as she gently turned me into a slow spin. At one point, she took both my hands and started skating backwards slowly, pulling me along with her. The blades on my little boots slid across the ice seamlessly and I smiled at the new sensation. It was almost like flying. Or how I imagined flying might feel like. Lyanna smiled back, "It's fun, isn't it?"

"Yes," I answered softly, only just use to the word on my tongue. I was a quiet child from the beginning and didn't spare much time on speaking, even after I learned how to talk.

_You're just like your father, Jeorgianna_ , my mother would say often, clucking her tongue in mock disapproval. But then she'd hug me tightly to her chest, kissing the top of my silver-blond head before adding that she wouldn't have it any other way.

I watched Lyanna's feet intently as I took another slide across the ice. But I took to it naturally, as expected. The blood of the First Men and old Valyria mixed in my veins well enough, granting me the best, I hoped, of both.

I glanced over at my mother and father, my mother's eyes locked on my father's face as she grinned and almost lost her footing for the third or fourth time. My father's hands were at her waist, always ready to catch her, if she decided to fall. I heard my mother's laugh as she slipped again and collapsed back into his arms, the sound of her sweet voice echoing across the lake.

We stayed at the lake late into the evening, making bonfires and skating until our feet ached. Even after the sun slunk beneath the southern horizon, we tarried—in the light of warm fires, with the smell of cider and savory meat wafting through the chilled air, enjoying winter in the way only Northerners know how.


End file.
